Month: March 2022

Week 10  Joshua 5-6

Joshua meets a man at the end of chapter 5. Well…not exactly a man. The “man” told Joshua: I am commander of the Lord’s army (he also said the ground was holy so Joshua took off his shoes).
It looks at first like the story ends there because chapter six starts by saying: the gates of Jericho were tightly shut. But then the next verse says: the Lord said to Joshua, “I have given you Jericho”.
I don’t think that just because the conversations are in two different chapters that they’re two different conversations (a bible-reader has to be careful to not let chapter breaks foul him up). If I disregard the first verse of chapter six the two conversations suddenly read like one. Except for the different names.
Which raises the question: who was Joshua talking to? Was it the commander of the Lord’s army (chapter 5) or was it the Lord (chapter 6)? Is the commander of the Lord’s army = the Lord? Maybe. Except for the different names.
And what about the ground? Does a subsidiary being (i.e. one who’s inferior-to-the-Lord) have the heft to make ground holy? I don’t really think so…holy ground implies God himself.
I think for now I’ll say Joshua has one conversation with one person. And the commander of the Lord’s army is the Lord. And the Lord decided to appear to Joshua in a fairly natural-looking material disguise that didn’t totally spook him.

Note: quotes from Joshua 5:14, 6:1-2 (NLT)

 

Week 10  Joshua 1

The book opens with the Lord speaking to Joshua. He tells him four key things (I figure they’re key because each one is repeated at least twice). The Lord says:
I will be with you
Be strong and courageous
Be careful to obey the law
You will be successful
The Lord begins and ends that second paragraph with the promise that he’ll be with Joshua. The Lord will be with Joshua in that abstracted with-ness way that the Lord tends to practice with people. A non-physical with-ness…dissimilar to person-to-person with-ness since it’s an immaterial present-ness.
Anyway the two things that’re most interesting to me are what Joshua is supposed to do.
He has to a) be strong. He has to b) obey the law. He doesn’t get much direction about point a) but he does about point b):
Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left…Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it.
So this is an interesting bible-readers’ reminder. Bible reading is definitely part of the plan. An important & recommended part. But a part. The Lord has compounded the reading part with features like being more undeviating & absorbed & meditative & activated by what I read. Readings’ additives.

Note: quote from Joshua 1:7-8 (NIV) and see 5-9

Week 10  Deuteronomy

I finished reading Deuteronomy yesterday. Which means I’ve finished a law-heavy section of my bible-reading year. There are hundreds of laws in Exodus Leviticus Numbers (and then a pretty thorough review of them in Deuteronomy).
I think it’s easy to come away with the general feeling that the content there is just a bunch of formalized mechanistic going-through-the-motions ritualistic stuffy perfunctorily-necessitarian restrictive glumly-judicious & suffocatingly-legalistic regulations and kosherisms.
So reading through Deuteronomy is a helpful reminder that other things are in play. For example:
if you search for the Lord with all your heart and soul you will find him…
you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength…
the Lord requires you to fear him, to live according to his will, to love and worship him with all you heart and soul…
always love the Lord your God and walk in his ways…
the Lord…will delight in you…if you turn to him…with all your heart and soul…
love the Lord…and keep his commands…
choose to love the Lord…and obey him and commit yourself to him…
take to heart all the words I have given you.
When I think about the laws as abstract requirements that are independent of everything except their own archaic necessity then the law seems like a kind of dinosauric regulatory-irrelevancy. So Deuteronomy’s reminders help with that bit of asymmetry.

Note: quotes from Deuteronomy 4:29, 6:5, 10:12, 19:9, 30:10, 30:16, 30:20, 32:46 (NLT)

Week 9  Psalm 62

The verse was already underlined when I read it today: my soul waits in silence for God only. Probably because when I read it before it sounded implausible…non-achievable.
David was giving circumstance-specific advice…i.e. it was for when an assassination squad was trying to kill him.
I’m relieved there aren’t assassins in the neighbourhood. I’d think the silent wait would be easier without them. Still…it doesn’t seem much easier.
For example on the purely practical & personal level of being a bible-reader the silent wait seems like a poor use of time to me. One of the things about being a bible-reader is focus and concentration and time-management and staying-on-track. So waiting around grinds against my bible-reader’s psyche.
And my hunch is that the natural approach of people here in town would be a discussion-and-action route. The Medicine Hat Way: talking and doing…engaging and consulting…fighting and arguing. They all seem like preferable options to silence and waiting.
So it’s a nagging thing that David has come up with. The silent wait steps right in the path of true progress. It seems retrograde…mystical. My instinct is to suppress it since it feels galling exasperating vexing frustrating. It’s an unnatural & foreign & totally non-conformistic practice. It runs against the grain. I’m really tempted to disregard the silent wait.
So I sit here thinking…wondering if it’s one of the things that’s disposable. Or at least if it’s negotiable.

Note: quote from Psalm 62:1 (NASB)

Week 9  Psalm 59

59 is today’s reminder to me that not every psalm is completely applicable to me personally on every single occasion that I read it.
The subtitle says it was: a psalm of David the time Saul sent soldiers to watch his house in order to kill him. So under those risky circumstances David prayed: rescue me from my enemies, O God. Protect me from those who have come to destroy me…save me from these murderers. David’s prayer was compatible with his current life experience.
So far the mayor of Medicine Hat hasn’t sent the local police to kill me (and I’m pretty sure she won’t). Which means 59 has a different degree of urgency for me. I’ll tend to locate it in the bottom-half of my Psalm Personal Relevancy List…for now at least…under my current circumstances. 59 is in a kind of drowsy hibernation.
But halfway around the world some guy at this very second here-&-now on March 1/22 who is literally & experientially exposed to genuinely murderous life-and-death attack might be thinking 59 fits the bill exactly. That guy’s life might be replicating David’s: my enemies come out at night, snarling like vicious dogs as they prowl the streets.
That guy…wherever he is – let’s say hypothetically in some place like eastern Europe – has a totally different Psalm Personal Relevancy List from me.
Events can relevantize psalms.

Note: quotes from Psalm 59:1, 14 & 6 (NLT). Bible Reading Report: as of February 28/22: 223 out of 1189 chapters read; 18.7% completed in 16.7% of the year; head still above water.