Medicine Hat Joe

Week 24  Proverbs 2

I normally think of Proverbs as a book of Short Sayings (for instance: a prudent person foresees the danger ahead and takes precaution). But the Short Sayings Section of the book doesn’t really get started until chapter 10.
The first nine chapters are written in paragraphs that I wouldn’t necessarily call ‘proverbs’ (unless I called them Long Proverbs). Here’s a good example: my child, listen to me and treasure my instruction. Tune your ears to wisdom, and concentrate on understanding. Cry out for insight and understanding. Search for them as you would for lost money or hidden treasure. This doesn’t sound like a proverb to me. It’s more like a Proverbs Reader’s Advisory.
But whatever-all it is it’s a good how-to alert. A bible-reader’s basic job is to read the words. But it looks like the writer is thinking about a related – but different – question: what am I reading the words for? What’s the point of reading? And his answer seems to be that by submerging myself in the reading then I will understand what it means to fear the Lord, and I will gain knowledge of God.
On the one hand I can read the bible and grab some content – a kind of Fact Accumulation Exercise. But I can also potentially push through into the knowing-the-Lord domain. Which makes the basic task of reading a bit more than basic.

Note: quotes from Proverbs 22:3 2:1-4 5-6 (NLT)

Week 24  Proverbs 1

When I arrive in the book of Proverbs I get a feeling of something like relief. My comfort-level is slightly elevated. There’s a little less pressure and I can breathe a bit easier.
For one thing the writer talks to young or inexperienced or immature people quite a bit. About a dozen times in the early going it’s a lot of “my-child-this” or “my-son-that”. Like it’s advice for kids. And what’s not to like about a straightforward proverb like: lazy people are soon poor; hard workers get rich. Pretty cut-and-dried. Manageable. Common-sensical. Something a young guy can understand.
But then the writer also says: let those who are wise listen to these proverbs and become even wiser. And let those who understand receive guidance by exploring the depth of meaning in these proverbs, parables, wise sayings, and riddles.
So it looks like even if the proverbs are something like A Beginner’s Book of Successful Living they’re not only that. They’re also something like Heart-and-Soul Truths About Life. Ideas for mature people.
Proverbs – more than most bible books – has lots of easy access points for a young reader.  A kid can read-and-understand. But they have depth too. A non-kid can explore the depth.
Complexity disguised in simplicity. Layers getting peeled back as I keep moving forward.
Proverbs are for kids. But I read them too. I don’t want to miss out.

Note: quotes from Proverbs 10:4 1:5-6 (NLT)

Week 23  Nehemiah 7

When the walls of Jerusalem were finally rebuilt Nehemiah appointed two men to work as his city governors. One of them was Hanani (Nehemiah’s own brother) and the other was Hananiah. Nehemiah says that Hananiah was a faithful man who feared God more than most.
I checked a bible dictionary. There are 9 other Hananiahs. Nehemiah’s Hananiah is only mentioned this one time.
Nehemiah doesn’t describe his brother at all. And as far as that goes he doesn’t say much about Hananiah either. But he does say that Hananiah was already the commander of the fortress. So he might have had transferable organizational & military & leadership skills. He was maybe fearless & cool-under-fire & authoritative & respected. But whatever else he was Nehemiah only says that: a) he was a faithful man and that b) he feared God more than most.
Being a faithful man might have included being loyal devoted conscientious trustworthy reliable. But whatever all it was it looks like Hananiah was dependable. Nehemiah could count on him.
Being a man who feared God didn’t mean he was terrified. But he revered the Lord. He had a pretty clear-eyed sense of what his position & rank was before the Lord.
A person might be dependable without being devoted to the Lord. Or he might revere the Lord without being very reliable. Nehemiah wanted someone who was both. And it looks like Hananiah fit-the-bill.

Note: quote from Nehemiah 7:2 (NLT)

Week 22  Ezra 1-6

The first six chapters of Ezra – apart from the list in chapter two – is a pretty interesting story. The seventy-year captivity in Babylon is finished. Cyrus of Persia frees-up captive Israel. And a smallish group of Jews in Babylon decide to return to Israel.
The impetus for this release from captivity is spelled out at the start: the Lord fulfilled Jeremiah’s prophecy by stirring up the heart of Cyrus to let
the people of Israel return to the land. The Lord also stirred the hearts of the…tribes of Judah and Benjamin to return to Jerusalem. The Lord prompted the Releaser and the Releasees.
But after the Lord’s initial prompt the story is mostly about what people did. It’s about Jeshua & Zerubbabel & the temple-building project & Rehum and Shimshai (two opponents) & Tattenai and Shetharbozenai (two more adversaries) & the letters going back-and-forth from Israel to Babylon & bureaucratic tie-ups. Ezra 1-6 is mostly about people.
But not totally. Toward the end of the story the writer added that things moved forward as they did because their God was watching over Israel.
It’s a subtle reminder. 99% of the section is people doing the things they’re doing. Meanwhile God was watching over them.
It’d be easy to think that in Ezra 1-6 the Lord was just lying in the weeds. But I get this reminder that no matter how low a profile he keeps it’d be a mistake to say he’s not engaged.

Note: quotes from Ezra 1:1 5 5:5 (NLT)

Week 22  2 Chronicles 10-36

A week ago I decided to rank the fifteen kings of Judah – I wanted a better & clearer idea of how they each graded-out.
This is what I found – Best-to-Worst:
1. Josiah
2. Hezekiah
3. Jotham
4. Jehoshaphat
5. Asa
6. Joash
7. Amaziah
8. Uzziah
9. Abijah
10. Rehoboam
11. Manasseh
12. Ahaziah
13. Jehoram
14. Ahaz
15. Amon
I feel pretty solid about my top three (and actually pretty good with my bottom four as well). But I guess every single one could be debated (for instance I heard a guy describe Joash as an outstanding king…but he was very lucky to land as high as #6 on my list).
One thing that impressed me was the poor overall quality of the kings. If I could assign an exact numerical percentage rating to each king (so let’s say Josiah is 90%) then the average of the fifteen kings would be low. The good grades of Josiah & Hezekiah & Jotham wouldn’t boost the rest very much. I’d be surprised if the Average King Rating was any more than 50%.

Note: end-of-month reading report: there’s the 403 chapters of Genesis – 2 Chronicles plus the 150 psalms. Those 553 chapters are 46.5% of the bible. And since 2023 is only 41.6% finished I’m ahead. So that’s good. It’s a relief too since May was a pretty ragged month for me. I credit my good outcome to the Rating-the-Kings exercise – it helped focus my attention after three pretty fuzzy weeks. It helped salvage my month.

Week 22  2 Chronicles 10-36

Last week I decided to make a ranked-list of the kings of Judah – from #1-to-#15. This week I’ve pretty much concluded (unfortunately) that the exercise can’t be done (at least not with much accuracy).
I think the biggest road-block is that when I needed to make subtle points of distinction I didn’t think Chronicles gave me enough data. Chronicles is a kind of Encyclopedia of the Kings – good for brief & to-the-point & general information – but not so good for drawing razor-thin differences (which is what I needed). I knew that if King A followed the Lord with his whole-heart and King B followed the Lord too but not with his whole-heart then I’d rank King A higher than King B. But I knew I couldn’t numerically quantify the difference between whole-hearted & part-hearted allegiance
Anyway I got a big piece of black construction paper. Then I cut out 15 small yellow slips with the name of a king on each. I rough-sorted them using questions like:
Did the king only do what was right?
Did he lead the nation in doing good?
Did he fail at some point?
Did he stayed ‘failed’ or turn back around?
Did the king only do wrong?
Did he publicly advocate for wrong-doing?
Did he lead the nation away from the Lord?
How did he end-up?
I’ll leave the 15-slips there overnight. Look them over tomorrow. Then take-my-best-shot at a ‘definitive’ list (but I already know it’ll be less definitive than I’d planned).

Week 22  2 Chronicles 34-35

Here’s what I found about Josiah:
He did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight and followed the example of his ancestor David. He did not turn aside from doing what was right.
He followed the pattern of Hezekiah and made a clean sweep in getting rid of the religious practices that his dad loved.
He repaired and renovated the Temple (he restored what earlier kings of Judah had allowed to fall into ruin).
The Passover had been cancelled so he got it restarted.
The “Book of the Law of the Lord” had been lost somewhere along the line and when it was recovered Josiah was stunned to see that Judah was pretty much totally non-compliant. So he had the book publicly read and he vowed to obey the Lord by keeping all his commands…and he promised to obey all the terms of the covenant that were written in the scroll.
He personally – and publicly – pledged to obey the covenant and he required everyone to worship the Lord their God. And the changes lasted: throughout the rest of his lifetime, Judah did not turn away from the Lord.
The Chronicles Evaluation: never before had there been a king like Josiah, who turned to the Lord with all his heart and soul and strength, obeying all the laws of Moses. And there has never been a king like him since.
It’s pretty hard to beat that.

Note: quotes from 2 Chronicles 34:2 11 31 33 & 2 Kings 23:25 (NLT)

Week 22  2 Chronicles 33

I just read the story of Manasseh – the Terrible King Who Ended Up Being Sorry About His Terribleness.
Now I’m reading about Manasseh’s son Amon. Amon was similar to his dad. But also different.
Similarity: Amon did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, just as his father Manasseh had done. He worshipped and sacrificed to all the idols his father had made.
Difference: unlike his father, he did not humble himself before the Lord. Instead, Amon sinned even more (the Kings account adds: he abandoned the Lord…and refused to follow the Lord’s ways).
So Amon had two examples to look at:
A) the early Bad Manasseh years where his dad was about as bad as bad could be.
B) the later Turned-Back-Around Manasseh years where his dad made amends and tried reversing direction.
Amon could choose A) or B) but he went all-in with A). No reasons are given (the Amon story is one of the shortest of the fifteen and all of it is about Amon’s evil-doing).
I have a rough & ready check list for the kings and I look to see how Amon does:
Did he do anything identifiably good? No.
Did he love & obey the Lord? No.
Did he deliberately operate against the Lord? Yes.
Did he promote evil? Yes.
Did he ever mend-the-error-of-his-ways? No.
So this puts Amon right down near the very bottom of the King’s Ranking List.

Note: quotes from 2 Chronicles 33:22 23 2 Kings 21:22 (NLT)

Week 21  2 Chronicles 33

I know I have to get-a-grip when I come to Manasseh and the reason’s simple: I don’t like him.
Anyway I review his reign:
He did what was evil in the Lord’s sight
Manasseh murdered many innocent people
He imitated traditional pagan religious practice. Rebuilt pagan shrines that Hezekiah had demolished. Rebuilt images of Baal. Set up Asherah poles. Practiced astrology. Set up pagan altars in the temple. Sacrificed his son. Practiced sorcery divination witchcraft and consulted mediums & psychics. He did much that was evil in the Lord’s sight
Manasseh led the people of Judah and Jerusalem to do even more evil than the pagan nations whom God had destroyed.
He pretty much undid everything good that his dad had done.
But there’s a fly-in-the-ointment of Evil Manasseh’s story. The Assyrians defeated Judah and took the king into captivity. But while he was in deep distress, Manasseh sought the Lord his God and cried out humbly to the Lord…and when he prayed the Lord listened to him and was moved by his request for help. Unbelievable!
When Manasseh was released he returned to Jerusalem and tried to undo what he had done. And he encouraged the people of Judah to worship the Lord.
I don’t like Manasseh. But I guess credit has to be given where credit is due.

Note: quotes from 2 Chronicles 33:2 2 Kings 21:16 2 Chronicles 33:6 9 12-13 16 (NLT)

Week 21  2 Chronicles 29-32

The story begins: Hezekiah did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight.
It goes on to say that in all that he did in the service of the Temple of God and in his efforts to follow the law and the commandments, Hezekiah sought his God wholeheartedly .
On the personal side Hezekiah was healed of a deadly illness when he prayed and the Lord intervened.
Hezekiah trusted in the Lord…There was never another king like him in the land of Judah, either before or after his time. He remained faithful to the Lord in everything, and he carefully obeyed all the commands the Lord had given Moses. So the Lord was with Hezekiah. This is a pretty significant comment!
However (and it’s a big & a disturbing ‘however’) Hezekiah did not respond appropriately to the kindness shown him (by the Lord), and he became proud. So the Lord’s anger came against him’. This is a huge and demoralizing reversal and I feel bad about Hezekiah. But I keep reading and see that then Hezekiah repented of his pride, and the people of Jerusalem humbled themselves.
In the four chapters devoted to Hezekiah there’s a long list of the other good things he did. There’s no question he’ll be ranked close to the top. But I’ll have to assess how much his failure of pride will influence the vote. Pride is a serious collapse for sure.

Note: quotes from 2 Chronicles 29:2 31:21 2 Kings 18:5-7 2 Chronicles 32:25-26 (NLT)