Somebody Else’s Mail (2)

I have a second introductory post coming next week, but I’m eager to get going, so let’s just jump in.

The author of Psalm 1 is unknown. Naturally, most scholars attribute these first six verses to David. For me, that’s a bit like the answers you get from ten-year-olds in Sunday School to questions about who did this or that in the Bible: they always guess either “God” or “Jesus”. Kids are not stupid. Those odds are usually better than 50/50; that’s just how Sunday Schools roll. Hopefully, they think, there’s something better at stake than yet another pencil. Maybe so do the scholars.

Too Hot to Handle: To Debate or Not to Debate

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Kristin Howerton thinks evangelicals need to rethink our response to the gay marriage issue. “Is the debate over gay marriage what we want to be known for?” she asks:

“Do these squabbles speak love? Does the loud and passionate protestation about same-sex marriage draw others to Christ?”

Tom: Good questions, Immanuel Can. Is there any easy answer? Or is this a debate where both sides may have legitimate concerns?

Inbox: Have I Got a Deal for You

Alison writes:

“Something [has] been bothering me for a really long time. Everybody says, ‘Read the book of Job for comfort, blah blah blah’, but look at Job 1:8.

‘Have you considered my servant Job?’ The speaker is God.

OMG did you get that?!?! It was YHVH who pointed Job out to the Adversary in the first place! He might as well have said, ‘Sic him, Satan!’ ”

[Throws hands in the air and wonders what it’s all about anyway]

That’s a big question, Alison. And though your wording may jar some readers, I think that at the end of the day, it’s actually quite a fair one.

The Claims of Christ and the Issue of the Week

A single line from Doug Wilson’s most recent fake letter to a Jewish man grappling with the Christian faith leapt off the screen at me this morning. It was this: “Jesus did not rise from the dead because Sandi is beautiful, and He did not remain in the grave to keep your parents from having to grieve.”

That’s not going to make a whole lot of sense to you if you haven’t read the post. It doesn’t really need to. Doug’s point was that people have all kinds of personal issues, problems, conflicts, needs and desires that Jesus Christ can address and satisfy. But Christians are unwise to present him to the world as merely a “fix” for their personal issue of the week, month or even lifetime.

That’s not first and foremost who he is or why we preach the gospel.

Privilege and Responsibility

“Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.”

The situation is as follows, and you have probably seen it many times. I have.

A married man comes to faith in Christ. His wife is not quite there yet in her thinking, and she may never be. How should that new believer look at his existing domestic arrangements? What does the Bible have to say about that?

The situation could just as easily be reversed, and often is. I have seen more wives than husbands saved first over the years. Perhaps women are easier to engage in conversation.

Anonymous Asks (402)

“Is it wrong to be pessimistic?”

The New Testament epistles have much to say about Christian joy. Paul mentions it six times in each of 2 Corinthians and Philippians, and five times in 1 Thessalonians. Our joy is one of the ways the world know we are different. Peter, John, Jude, the writer to the Hebrews and even grumpy old James mention joy too. By my count, that’s every NT letter. Joy should characterize the Christian life.

Of course, joy is not mere optimism. It’s far more than that.

The Eternal Perspective

“I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

I think it’s fair to say God rarely gets a fair shake from any but his own.

If any being in all the cosmos has ever been so second-guessed, given zero benefit of the doubt, or had the worst of all possible motives attributed to him, it is the Creator and Sustainer of our universe. Some of the more vicious attacks on God’s character are merely laughable when closely analyzed. We easily dismiss them as ignorant blathering.

Other critiques feel like they might have more substance. The Christian attempting a defense for his faith finds himself with a difficult task.

Somebody Else’s Mail (1)

Reading somebody else’s mail can be a profitable exercise. We can learn much about the Lord and his ways from truths he has not directly shared with us, just as I can learn a great deal about my natural father’s character by reading his letters to my brother or sister. We can take very personal lessons from things that happened to people from wildly different cultural backgrounds in distant times and places. After all, God is the same God. He never changes his character.

That is not true of his tactics and strategies. Those may vary quite a bit.

Too Hot to Handle: Getting Relevant

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

I heard that most young people drop out of church today, either for a short or indefinite time, around age 18-19. I was concerned: after all, if we lose the next generation, what’s going to happen to the church? But then I found this glossy new resource, and it’s really helping me to understand what today’s young adults are going to find relevant by way of spiritual stuff. I’m sharing it with you, Tom, because I know you’ve got young-adult children of your own.

Just in time, eh?

Tom: Uh, thanks, IC, I think. Why is it that some Christians seem to think that being “relevant” actually means “pandering” or “condescending”?

What About the Witches?

The most extraordinary thought occurred to me today.

I’ve been debating with atheists online again …

Yeah, don’t ask.

Anyway, one of the funny things they do is to call up the alleged records of theist “atrocities”, which of course they then want to attribute to all Christians. Apparently, we’re responsible for everything from the Crusades and Inquisitions to the Holocaust and (according to atheist popularizer Bill Maher) “all the wars”.

If this lack of any historical or theological awareness were not funny enough, a favorite canard of theirs actually involves the Salem Witch Trials.

A Theology of AI

I was texting a Christian friend yesterday. The poor guy is stuck in the middle of a disagreement with the CRA (Canada’s IRS) over his assessment for a previous year. Everybody he talks to at the tax office tells him a different story about what he owes and why.

Having a little inside knowledge about the way bureaucracies operate, I could assure him this will continue to be the case, and to suggest that he keep talking until he finds an auditor who agrees with him. Enough calls and polite appeals, and there’s a good chance one eventually will. I see it happening all the time. People have a tendency to give up too easily when they are in the right.

The big illusion about both tax law and every other kind of law is that putting instructions in writing with exacting precision leads to greater certainty and a single, predictable outcome. In fact, the more we multiply words, the more interpretations proliferate.

The Giant Reset Button

Baruch Davidson notes that the Jubilee year is not observed or commemorated in modern Israel.

Before the Assyrian conquest of the northern portion of the divided kingdom in the sixth century BC, Davidson says, the Jubilee was regularly celebrated. But a dispute over the interpretation of the words “all who live on it” in Leviticus 25:10 has led many Jews to conclude that the festive year of freedom may only be celebrated when all twelve tribes are living in the Promised Land. So until the return of the ten “lost” tribes, the Jubilee is on hold.

That may not seem a big deal today. It would have been a huge deal to an Israelite in the years before the Assyrian captivity.

Anonymous Asks (401)

“Why is finding true love so difficult?”

The list of possible answers to this question is lengthy, so I won’t pretend to get to them all. Perhaps we can start with some of the features of our society that work against us when we are in the process of trying to pair up for life.

First on that list is an affliction sometimes called “oneitis”.

Just Stop It

My brother was joking the other day that he might someday preach a message entitled “Ten Things a Bible Teacher Should Never Say from the Platform”. I trust he’s compiling his list as I write. I hope one day he’ll tell me the other nine.

In any case, we both agreed heartily about this one: “I’m not speaking to you, I’m speaking to myself.”

No. No, no, no. Please, no.

Boasting Against the Branches

“God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.”

Dear readers, if you will indulge me, let me tell you a parable just a very little bit like the one Nathan told David. I trust you may not have cause to be as stricken as David was when the prophet’s point went home into his soul, but if you need it, you need it, just like David did.

If you are not “the man”, all the better, not just for you but for us all.

Too Hot to Handle: Break Out the Marshmallows

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

This is an interesting take. The Independent brings us the story of Joseph Atwill, who has written a book entitled Caesar’s Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus.

Atwill says Christianity is actually a “system of mind control” developed by the Romans to “produce slaves that believe God actually decreed their slavery”.

Tom: Who knew, Immanuel Can? Our whole faith is nothing more than the product of a first century propaganda campaign. Fortunately someone finally figured that out for us. Or not.

Bedsheets, Breeches and Bema

“The unexamined life,” said Socrates, “is not worth living.”

Well, he didn’t actually use those precise words, but that’s how it’s been quoted since — in books, on coffee mugs and t-shirts, and in the common memory. The essence of his words has remained, even if the particulars are a bit sketchy.

How seriously ought we to take that? True, he’s called the Father of Philosophy, and he was notoriously smart. But the guy wore bedsheets, and died a long while ago. How seriously can you take a guy dressed in bedsheets?

The Commentariat Speaks (38)

A developing trend in his local congregation troubles a regular Blog & Mablog reader named Brian. It’s the sisters. His church leaders have started inviting women to read scripture to their fellow believers and to lead the congregation in public prayer. He inquires:

“Is there an exegetically defensible way to interpret 1 Timothy 2 and 1 Corinthians 14 in such a way as to permit women to [read Scripture and then lead in prayer on Sunday morning during public worship services]?”

I don’t think he’s looking for an end-around these scriptures because he goes on to wonder if this trend is sufficient reason to break fellowship and go elsewhere.

Each By His Own Standard

Growing up in a Christian home has a tendency to normalize things some people might consider quite unusual. This is especially true with respect to Bible reading. My parents made it a practice to familiarize all their children with God’s word from cover to cover. Every morning before school, we gathered in the living room for a few minutes of Bible reading, discussion and prayer. This went on well into our teens, so we covered a lot of scriptural territory.

Guess what? The abnormal became normal from simple familiarity.

Anonymous Asks (400)

“What is apostasy?”

The word “apostasy” comes from the Greek ἀποστασία, transliterated apostasia. Very few English translations of the Bible use it much. Strong’s defines it as falling away or defection. It’s closely related to the word commonly translated “divorce” in the New Testament. One place we do find it is in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, where it refers to a major future event in which the “man of sin” is revealed to the world.

Inbox: Jews and Israelites

A reader writes, “Jew does not mean Israelite and not one verse in scripture says so.”

If you search the words “Israel” or “Israelite” in combination with the word “Jew” in a concordance, you will find no single verse of scripture that contains both. In this, I suppose, our reader is correct when he writes, “Not one verse in scripture says so.”

He’s right: Not one single verse says it. I can absolutely do it in two, though.

The Eleven-Year Window

When did John write the book of Revelation? Have you ever thought about that? It’s actually a matter of some controversy.

Anyone familiar with the various schools of eschatological interpretation will immediately see why dating Revelation matters, and matters quite a bit to those invested in it. Preterists believe most of John’s visions chronicled in chapters 1 through 19 came to pass not long after he wrote, fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple by the Roman army in AD70. Futurists believe little corresponding to most of these events has yet taken place.

Too Hot to Handle: The Dwarves are for the Dwarves

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

The term “postmodern” is not actually all that modern. John Watkins Chapman used it in the 1880s in relation to art criticism. Umberto Eco has said that postmodernism is less a style or a period than an “attitude”.

The attitude comes out clearly in what is produced by postmodernists in their various fields: postmodern graphic design disdains traditional conventions such as legibility; postmodern music rejects beauty and sometimes structure; postmodern philosophers reject the concepts of subjectivity and objectivity. You get the general idea.

Tom: Immanuel Can, help me nail it down: what is postmodernism?

The Grass is Always Greener in Sodom

“Lot raised his eyes and saw all the vicinity of the Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere ... So Lot chose for himself all the vicinity of the Jordan.”

I have a friend.

He and I made our commitment to live for the Lord around the same time. But I stayed in our home area, and he went away to Hollywood to make his fortune.

IF

This post is going to be about Calvinism’s least favorite word.

For those who don’t know, Calvinism is the belief that God is like Fate ... a big, inexorable, controlling force that decides everything in the universe long before you get a chance to, and allows no place for free will. Calvinists talk about “the sovereign decrees of the Almighty”, or just “sovereignty” for short, by which they mean you have no choice. Even your willingness to be saved, they say, has to be irresistibly pressed upon you from above. “Faith”, they say (misreading Ephesians 2:8), is a “gift” — but one like no gift you’ve ever had; it’s crammed down your unwilling throat by an arbitrary God. They even say that regeneration, the new birth, has to be done to you without your agreement, and before salvation — before you can hear and respond to the gospel. God is the puppet master and you’re on the strings.

If I sound lunatic in saying all this, don’t worry; Calvinists stand squarely behind it. Just ask them.

A Bit Too Easy

Some proposed solutions to theological problems are a bit too easy. They hold up only so long as you don’t examine them too carefully.

In yesterday’s Anonymous Asks post, I talked about the value of the Law of Moses to Christians. I made the argument that Christian standards come from the apostles and writers of NT scripture, not from the Law of Moses (except, of course, indirectly in many cases). When the Lord Jesus fulfilled the law, he made obsolete the Old Covenant under which Israel had received its law from God.

That fact often confuses Christians. If some parts of the Law of Moses are now obsolete, how can we tell which ones we are no longer to practice and which remain valid?

Anonymous Asks (399)

“What principles can we put into practice when it comes to Sabbath rest?”

I am finding this question and variations on it increasingly common in online forums with large numbers of younger commenters from theological systems in which Replacement Theology is a major tenet. In a way this makes sense for them. If indeed, as their system teaches, the people of God are a continuum from Abraham (or earlier) to present day — if the Church is Israel and Israel the Church — then why not practice Israel’s Sabbath rest in some form?

Semi-Random Musings (48)

A Christian man looking for a wife thought his Facebook connections might help, so he inquired on the social media site recently about churches in his area where he might find higher than average numbers of single women. As he put it, “Same faith is a priority.” No kidding.

Much to this poor fellow’s surprise, the response to his query was most unfavorable. “Church isn’t for dating!” was the most common reaction.

Really? That’s a new one on me.

No King in Israel (52)

Polygamy was a problem very early for Israel. Jacob, the father of the nation, married a pair of sisters, also siring children by both their handmaids. If his household had been a shining example to his descendants, we would probably have seen much more of this, but a careful reading of the Genesis text shows how many problems, great and small, were a product of the perpetual bickering and factional jealousies within Jacob’s family, including one near-murder.

Despite the lasting impression of sexual excess that David and Solomon left behind, polygamy in Israel was relatively rare. It could be that Jacob’s cautionary tale left a lasting impression.

Too Hot to Handle: Open Just A Bit Too Far

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

We’ve talked a lot about Calvinism here over the past two years. We have not talked very much about Open Theism, also referred to as Dynamic Omniscience, which might be said to be Calvinism’s very near-opposite.

By the time the Evangelical Theological Society adopted the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy in 2006, their decade-long internal debate over Dynamic Omniscience had pretty much petered out. ETS president Tom Schreiner says that for the ETS at least, the debate has “simmered down”.

And yet today the Global Christian Center still lists what it calls the “Open Theism Controversy” among its nine most important issues facing the evangelical church.

Tom: This particular idea about God is clearly not going away. In a nutshell, Immanuel Can, what is Open Theism?

Media and the Gospel

“The medium is the message”, said the great philosopher of mass media, Marshall McLuhan.

It’s his most oft-quoted line, since it’s so often true. When you have a message to send, you’ve got to be very careful about the form (i.e. the “method” or “medium”) in which you’re sending it, or the message itself can become horribly distorted.

Efficacy and Embarrassment

It started with a comment from Pete Hegseth, the US Secretary of Defense, about the building of the third temple in Jerusalem. Hegseth is a Christian and to some appeared a little too eager to see it happen.

Then Doug Wilson responded with a post about the challenges he believes another temple presents for dispensational theology. Doug generously acknowledges that like other Christians, dispensationalists believe the Christian church replaced the temple service in our present era in God’s plans and purposes. We also take Bible prophecy literally wherever that seems reasonable.

But Doug believes the rebuilding of a temple in Jerusalem is going to be a troublesome issue for dispensationalists.

What Does Your Proof Text Prove? (35)

I was reading a Puritan Board discussion the other day about the morality of human desire that got me thinking.

Believers on both sides of the ongoing divine determinism argument can probably agree scripture teaches that neither Christians nor unbelievers are able to perform any eternally valuable works without the help of God in some sense. Commenters cite a long list of verses including John 15:5 and Psalm 127:1 to make the case.

Fair enough, I can buy that.

Anonymous Asks (398)

“Is Mary the mother of God?”

There is a kind of childish logical syllogism drawn by some in which the budding theologian goes from the true statements “Mary was the mother of Jesus” and “Jesus is God” to “Mary is the mother of God”. The final claim is simply untrue, not to mention blasphemous, depending on what those who say it or write it intend by it. The error is a decent example of the informal fallacy we call false equivalence, which involves consciously or unconsciously substituting one term for another in a syllogism where the terms are not precisely identical. Asparagus is a vegetable. That does not make it the only type of vegetable in existence.

Think of it this way: if Jesus is God, does that mean God is Jesus?

The Synoptic Gospels and Atonement (2)

On Wednesday of this week, I tackled critics who set in opposition the gospel preached by the apostle Paul and the teaching of the Lord Jesus in the synoptic gospels, alleging they disagree, particularly with respect to the issue of Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross. One critic I quoted claims Paul invented the atonement concept out of whole cloth. In response, I pointed out we should hardly expect to find fully developed teaching about atonement in the gospels, which record for the most part what took place leading up to the cross, and do not attempt to explore its implications.

Instead, I argued, in the synoptics we should expect to find hints, premonitions and suggestions that our Lord was doing something far grander and more significant in dying than simply paying the traditional price exacted from prophets for telling the truth.

Lo and behold, that is exactly what we find.

No King in Israel (51)

Hebrew language and law distinguish between that which a man dedicated to God and that which he devoted. Both involved setting something apart, but the latter was set apart irrevocably. If a man devoted some object to the Lord, it became “most holy” or “consecrated”, set apart such that he could not buy it back for his ordinary (profane, common) use. The word for that is ḥāram, from ḥērem, meaning “cursed”. In the context of war or when under the sentence of capital punishment, the same term is variously translated “completely destroy”, “utterly destroy” or, my personal favorite, “devote to destruction”.

That word appears here in verse 11 in association with the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead, who refused to come to Mizpah and fight on behalf of Israel against Benjamin.

Too Hot to Handle: I Have My Doubts

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

In a poem entitled “Bishop Blougram’s Apology”, Robert Browning wrote these words:

“That way
Over the mountain, which who stands upon
Is apt to doubt if it be meant for a road;
While, if he views it from the waste itself,
Up goes the line there, plain from base to brow,
Not vague, mistakeable! what’s a break or two
Seen from the unbroken desert either side?
And then (to bring in fresh philosophy)
What if the breaks themselves should prove at last
The most consummate of contrivances
To train a man’s eye, teach him what is faith?”

Tom: Wow, I can relate. Immanuel Can, are Christians supposed to admit we ever have moments when we struggle with doubt?

Overcoming the Exhaustion of the Exhaustive

The law is not a fun ride.

As the disciples of old concluded, it was actually quite impossible to keep. The nation of Israel had tried ... and tried ... and tried ... but never hard enough, and never with success for very long. No wonder the disciples reduced their expectations on the new Gentile converts. You might say that law-keeping had really turned out to be a failed project. Badly failed.

So, you might be forgiven if, today, with the prospect of keeping all the commandments in the Bible, Christians pull back and halt. It was bad enough when the Old Testament commandments were tried. How much worse is it to think of all the additional commandments added in the New? Fatigue sets in, even when we think of a task like that.

The law wears us out.

The Synoptic Gospels and Atonement (1)

Brace yourselves for a pair of lengthy but necessary posts. The error they address has been around for ages, but people are still circulating it online. Others have certainly pushed back against it, but we’ve never addressed it here at any length, and I think it’s worth some careful analysis.

Critics of Christianity often try to set the teaching of the gospels, in particular the synoptics, against the teaching of the apostle Paul in his epistles. They allege that the gospel preached by Paul contradicts and even “destroys” the teaching of Jesus. That’s a claim that cries out for rebuttal from the pages of scripture. If true, it presents a major difficulty for the Christian faith.

One of the areas in which Paul and Jesus allegedly differ is the subject of atonement.

Getting Practical with Exposition

Peter broadly categorizes the gifts of the Holy Spirit under the headings of speaking and service. There are verbal gifts and non-verbal gifts. He then says anyone who speaks should do so “as one who speaks oracles of God”. That’s a high standard and a challenge for everyone who attempts to explain the Bible to others. Faithful exposition requires making the text understandable to the best of our ability as the Holy Spirit leads, interpreting scripture with scripture.

A problem: in most meetings of the church these days, the opportunity to ask questions during or after a sermon does not exist.

Anonymous Asks (397)

“Is nagging a Christian tactic?”

Nagging is often associated with frustrated wives and mothers, perhaps unfairly. Passive aggressive men do it too. Try the words “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times” with a little ‘Y’ chromosome on them, and you’ll quickly think of somebody male in your life with the habit of saying considerably more than is useful or necessary. I definitely did.

In any case, neither of my parents were inclined to nag. My early home life was happily unmarked by the irritation that persistent verbal harassment provokes.

Exposition Without Expositing

Premastication or kiss feeding is the act of breaking down food by chewing it for those who can’t yet chew, then passing the pulped food mouth to mouth. Most mother apes do it for their offspring. Pigeons and parrots do something similar, but they regurgitate. Some human cultures do it too.

I have to confess some of what I’m hearing from church platforms these days puzzles me. It’s not that it’s wrong, exactly; most of the Bible teaching in the churches I frequent is quite orthodox in terms of its conclusions. Nobody is indulging in heretical craziness or flights of wild fancy. Nor are speakers subjecting their audiences to a barrage of sentimental anecdotes at the expense of biblical content, as I found was common in the late eighties.

It’s more like the art of expounding the text of scripture has suddenly gone AWOL, and I miss it. No small number of Bible teachers have never learned to chew their food before they pass it on.

No King in Israel (50)

At dinner with Christian friends a few days ago, we discussed the subject of how we should best apply New Testament principles to a situation outside regular local church meetings. Nowhere in the NT do we have either precept or example concerning how to conduct a series of Bible teaching meetings of women gathering from multiple local churches. Whose authority are they under? Which normal church practices should they observe in such a context and which are they free to ignore? Inquiring minds wanted to know, including the men.

Unsurprisingly, despite most of us being relatively mature in the faith, we quickly found we disagreed.

Too Hot to Handle: Made for More of What?

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Tom: Immanuel Can is sending me bad things again. And I’m not entirely sure how to respond. This time it’s Moody Publishers’ “Post Sunday”, in which Moody extols one of its new releases. This one is a Hannah Anderson special in which the author holds forth on the “lameness” of the church. Okay, I can’t stop there: the church is lame (according to Hannah) because she has crippled herself. In the words of Ms Anderson, we have failed to equip “Bible women” because we “don’t have a vision for how God could use them for His glory.”

Help me out here: what are “Bible women”?

A Dangerously Clear Head

True story: When I was in my early university career, I was friends with a girl whose father taught history there. One of his students exhibited a most peculiar propensity in his essays; and that is, that no matter what question he was asked, he always answered, “God did it.”

What caused the Napoleonic Wars?

“God did.”

The Eye of the Beholder

“Heretic” is a strong word.

As an enthusiastic young believer, I used to hurl the epithet around a fair bit, as did several of my equally enthusiastic friends. We were excited about the things we were discovering in the word of God and determined to practice them. Anyone who didn’t agree with our views of scripture obviously had serious spiritual problems. Perhaps they were merely dull or deluded … or maybe they were the dreaded “H” word.

Yeah, we didn’t do nuance much.

Where Are the Nine?

Luke’s gospel tells us the Lord Jesus healed ten lepers in a village between Samaria and Galilee on the way to Jerusalem. At the word of the Lord, these all found themselves remotely cleansed of their disease on the way to show themselves to the priests. That must have been quite a moment.

Nine of the ten were Jews. Perhaps they continued to the priests as instructed, though Luke doesn’t tell us. Their tale ends at the miraculous healing. The tenth turned back, praising God. He fell at the feet of Jesus, giving him thanks. Luke says he was a Samaritan.

Anonymous Asks (396)

“What does the Bible say about ice ages?”

Weather and climate are two different things, a fact deliberately obscured by the Global Boiling true believers and those who make financial use of them.

Weather is short-term. It’s the state of the atmosphere at a given time and place. It happens today, tomorrow or next week. Ask me what the weather has been like this winter and I’ll answer that it’s been close to normal temperatures with perhaps a little more snow than usual.

‘His’ Cross

On at least three occasions, the Lord Jesus told his followers that in order to be his disciple it was necessary they take up their cross and bear it. To his disciples in Matthew 10, he said, “Whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” Luke quotes a similar statement made to great crowds: “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”

What’s striking about that in hindsight is that he said it well prior to going to the cross himself.

No King in Israel (49)

In a recent post I noted similarities in the Lord’s reaction to Israel’s prayers prior to going into battle against Benjamin and his response to Joshua’s prayer after Achan’s sin led to Israel’s defeat at the first battle of Ai. In Judges 20, it’s quite possible the leaders of Israel’s army lifted the ambush strategy they employed to defeat Benjamin from Joshua’s strategy at the second battle at Ai not many decades prior. That strategy did not originate with Joshua. It came from the Lord. On top of that, the account in Joshua shows the former city of Ai was not far from Bethel, where Israel gathered to pray earlier in this chapter.

Like the sins of Sodom and Gibeah, the two battle accounts in Joshua 8 and Judges 20 have several features in common.