Medicine Hat Joe

Week 14  1 Samuel 11-31

I sketched out a graph to trace Saul’s progress as king.
The x-axis was a simple time scale – the period of Saul’s reign.
The y-axis measured Quality of Leadership. It was more complicated and had to consider things like character stability mental-health integrity fairness objectivity rationality. I was asking if Saul was concerned with the betterment of the nation. Did he have a vision for Israel? Did he inspire followers? Was he focussed on concerns of state and the well-being of his citizens? Like that. Multiple factors along the y-axis.
In chapter 11 Saul became king and I started him high on the top-left of the graph.
In 13 he supervised a burnt offering. And in 14 disobeyed explicit battle orders. Serious offenses… Moving right I dropped Saul down a bit. And things continued to go-south.
In 18 David saved Israel from Goliath but Saul got screamingly jealous.
18: Saul set-up David to be killed by enemies.
19: Saul tried to murder David.
19: Saul tried to have David assassinated.
22 23 24 & 26: Saul tried again again again & again to kill fugitive David. Down down down & down drops the line on Saul’s Quality of Leadership chart – it looks like the buying power of the Canadian dollar.
The graph doesn’t lie. Saul seemed like a good guy at first. But he lived to show that good at-firsts don’t necessarily convert to good at-lasts.

Week 14  1 Samuel 11

There’s a strange conversation recorded near the end of the chapter:
The people then said to Samuel, “Who was it that asked, ‘Shall Saul reign over us?’ Bring these men to us and we shall put them to death.”
But Saul said, “No one shall be put to death today, for this day the Lord has rescued Israel.”
Then Samuel said to the people, “Come and let us go to Gilgal and there reaffirm the kingship.”
You have to read chapter 10 for the backstory. But 10’s not really the point. The point is that the people asked Samuel a question. But Saul answered it.
When I’m reading the OT histories I’m making mental adjustments allowing for the fact that the material is three-thousand years old. I guess it’s possible triangulated interrogations took place in the ancient near east. But I figure that normally when “A” asked “B” a question that he expected “B” to answer…not “C”.
So I’m not exactly sure what-all to make of this.
Samuel was a Priest / Prophet.
Saul was a King.
What did the Handbook of Division of Responsibilities say about who could do what (apart from answering the other guy’s question)?
I wonder if there was already an edginess between Samuel and Saul. More important – was there a point of conflict growing between the two power-roles?
I know that eventually kings and prophets will lock horns. And chapter eleven might be an early warning of just that.

Note: quote from 1 Samuel 11:12-14 (NIV)

Week 13  Psalm 92

Verse seven says: although the wicked flourish like weeds, and evildoers blossom with success, there is only eternal destruction ahead of them. So there’s two pieces. Piece #1: wicked people will be successful. Piece #2: evil people will end up in a state of permanent destruction. Taken together Pieces #1 & #2 make up the full picture. But today Piece #1 jumps out at me…evil people will be successful.
There’s no law of the universe saying a bad person can’t be successful. Evilness and success can go hand-in-hand. And even though there’s also no law says I have to be bad to succeed the main point in Piece #1 is that there are villains who are high-achiever villains.
Of course Piece #2 seems to balance things out in the end – the writer says: with my own eyes I have seen the downfall of my enemies. But I don’t get the impression a good person is guaranteed to witness the fail of an evil person. An evil guy might even live his whole life and outlive the good guy and then die a success.
That doesn’t mean he outsmarts and avoids Piece #2. But for me it’s a reminder that a ruthless violent corrupt person might be very successful. So I shouldn’t be surprised when I see it. And even if I know his success is only in the short-term it’s still a success (and for all I know a rogue’s short-term might still end up seeming pretty gallingly long).

Note: quotes from Psalm 92:7 & 11 (NLT)

Week 13  1 Samuel 3

The writer begins by saying that Samuel is a young apprentice in the tabernacle. Then he adds: in those days messages from the Lord were very rare, and visions were quite uncommon.
I’m reluctant to make anything more of it than that – when Samuel was young messages from the Lord were rare.
I draw a vertical line on a page and title it ‘Message Frequency’.
At the bottom of the line I write ‘Rare’ and at the top ‘Often’.
Beside ‘Rare’ I add extra words – infrequent uncommon seldom once-in-a-blue-moon. Direct and immediate contact wasn’t happening. Israel was in the communication doldrums.
At the top beside ‘Often’ I add frequent regular recurring common repeatedly often-enough. Communication initiatives are happening.
I wonder why the writer made this point about message frequency. I figure that for one thing he was saying that Samuel’s nighttime experience when he heard the Lord was an exception to the rule. And maybe too that this was the beginning of an uptick in message frequency. (That’s a pretty safe bet. I’ve read the story of Samuel before and know that he develops into a regular conduit of messages from the Lord.)
And I also wonder whether message frequency is a longer-term & recurring & cyclical thing. A repeatable pattern over periods of time. Stages when the Lord’s voice is rare. Then times when it’s regular. Back-forth. On-off. Open-shut. I wonder what regulates the interval. Wonder if and how it’s regulable.

Note: quote from 1 Samuel 3:1 (NLT)

Week 13  Psalm 90

It’s month-end so it seemed like good-timing to read: teach us to make the most of our time, so that we may grow in wisdom.
Just a couple of verses above the writer said: seventy years are given to us! Some may even reach eighty. So I have eighty years give-or-take and I’m supposed to make the most of them.
I personalize the verse: teach me to make the most of my time, so that I’ll grow in wisdom.
(The writer says that the Lord is: without beginning or end. It’s a reminder of one way that I’m totally different from the Lord. He doesn’t need to make the most of his time. Time doesn’t apply to him. (But it’s an important factor for me.))
I sit for a bit…wondering what-all’s involved in making the most of my time:
A good starter is to keep in mind that my clock is ticking down…
I figure I should focus-in on today (not time in the abstract)…
Third I remind myself that time is a limited & diminishing resource but I get to allocate it…
And it’s probably good to mentally rate what I’m doing today along a Most Valuable-Least Valuable assessment line…
Finally I remember that mindlessly zombie-ing my way through the day is something to avoid.
March 31 = 24.7% of the year gone. And I’m sitting here wondering how much I’ve made of it.

Note: quotes from Psalm 90:12 10 & 2 (NLT). First quarter reading report: 28.2% completed.

Week 13  1 Samuel

It’s been a few days since I read the stories of the judges. Othniel Ehud Shamgar Deborah Gideon Tola Jair Jephthah Izban Elon Abdon & Samson take up 16 of the book’s 21 chapters. Then there’s the last five demoralizing vulgar & brutal chapters – a kind of appendix to Judges. Then there’s the book of Ruth.
If the Judges ‘appendix’ and the book of Ruth were taken out of the bible you’d jump from the story of Samson straight into the story of Samuel.
Samson’s story begins: in those days, a man named Manoah from the tribe of Dan lived in the town of Zorah. His wife was unable to become pregnant, and they had no children.
Samuel’s story begins: there was a man named Elkanah who lived in Ramah in the hill country of Ephraim…Elkanah had two wives, Hannah and Peninnah. Peninnah had children, while Hannah did not.
Similar beginnings…
…two men
…two wives who couldn’t have children
…two angelic visits
…two promises of unexpected pregnancies
…two instructions for Nazarite upbringings
…two babies who’ll be important players
…both named Sam.
And there’s differences too…
…the two moms are completely different women
…and the two boys develop into completely different men.
The Lord made use of an incandescent but eccentric buffoon and he made use of a classy quiet rock-solid character-guy.
Both of them are in my Top Fifty list of bible biographies. But only one makes my Top Ten.

Note: quotes from Judges 13:2 & 1 Samuel 1:1-2 (NLT).

Week 12  Ruth

Bible readings tend to transfer their own qualities into my head. And since their qualities aren’t neutral…and since my head isn’t neutral…there’s sometimes a kind of bible-reader’s Psychic Turbulence going on.
For instance the book of Judges isn’t neutral. It starts in a state of tribal degradation and crashes to an end with a story of vicious cruelty and violent stupidity. (I’m tempted to think that Judges is the ultimate example on how absolutely degenerated the world can be…but I won’t because then I’d have to pretend there were no 20th & 21st centuries.) Judges is dark. I think of it as being one of the deep blue books of the bible. Judges isn’t going to give me much elevation under any circumstances…but especially if I’m feeling the blues. If I could schedule it I’d only read Judges on a sunny day.
The book of Ruth is different. I can read Ruth under overcast grey because she brings her own warmth and lightness and boost. Ruth is as inspiring as Judges is dispiriting.
So reading Ruth today reminds me that bible readings tend to transfer their own qualities into the inside of me. There’s always those two factors: what I’m reading and what I’m feeling. When I’m reading-through in a programmatic way I can’t always match up the two.
Psychic Turbulence is a bible-reader’s concern. Being aware of it doesn’t resolve everything. But being on heightened alert is a bit of a help.

Week 12  bible reading

I’m reading the story of a man who was executed in Germany during World War II. In one of his letters he talked about bible-reading:
I believe the bible alone is the answer to all our questions and that I only need to ask it repeatedly and humbly for the answers. I’ll only get the ultimate answers
I’m looking for if that’s what I expect to find.
In the bible God speaks to me. I can’t simply figure things out about God using my own unassisted intellectual capacity. I have to ask him and it’s only in asking him that he’ll answer me.
I’ve found that I can’t simply read the bible the way I read other books. I have to be prepared to really ask questions from it. It’s only then that it will reveal answers to me.
Of course it is possible to read the Bible like any other book and there’s nothing to be said against that method. Except for the fact that then I’ll only see the surface of the book. I won’t discover the heart of the bible.
This letter was a good reminder to me. I’m reading to read-through. And I’m reading to discover answers.

Note: quoted by Eric Metaxas in Bonhoeffer: Pastor Martyr Prophet Spy (Nelson: Nashville, 2010) 136. The letter was written more than eighty years ago so I rearranged it and changed some of the language. But I’ve tried hard to keep the message accurate.

Week 12  Judges 17-18

The stories of the judges – Othniel Ehud Shamgar Deborah Gideon Tola Jair Jephthah Izban Elon Abdon & Samson – end at chapter 16.
But then the writer of the book adds on five extra chapters. Like an appendix. Not about judges. About two men from the tribe of Levi. I look at the first man…
Micah got a cast silver idol
He set up a religious shrine for it
Got some special priestly clothes stitched up
Then named his son to be priest of the shrine
Later he hired a real-live Levite as priest
The Levite left Micah when he got a better job offer
He became The Official Priest for the whole tribe of Dan
And Micah’s (stolen) silver idol became their god.
I look back over the story and see that almost every single thing that Micah and the Levite did was contrary to Moses’ laws.
At the beginning of the Micah story it says that in Israel: the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes (the book ends with that exact same phrase).
With the stories of the judges you get a feeling that Israel’s in a bit of a national tail-spin. But here at the end with the two Levites it’s spelled out pretty clearly that people are just doing pretty much whatever they wanted. Which seems contemporary and liberal and fairly desirable. But in Judges it turns into a chaotic fiasco.

Note: quote from Judges 17:6 (NLT)

Week 12  Judges 9

I don’t like Abimelech. Which isn’t saying much since it’s probably a pretty common feeling. He was a really terrible man. I think I’d be justified in totally disregarding him.
But I keep wondering about him. Mostly I wonder why he’s even in the book of the judges.
I know that not all the judges were stand-up guys. Abimelech not only wasn’t a stand-up guy but from what I can see he wasn’t even a judge.
Abimelech was one of Gideon’s sons and when Gideon died Abimelech hired mercenaries to assassinate his own brothers. And since he then had no rivals he had himself proclaimed king. Not judge…king.
And unlike other judges Abimelech didn’t save Israel from an external enemy. Instead he got involved in an intra-tribal war with the Shechemites that see-sawed back and forth until Abimelech was killed when a woman threw a big chunk of rock over the city wall and crushed his skull.
The other judges rescued Israel from its foes. Abimelech didn’t.
Judges helped bring peace and rest to Israel. Abimelech didn’t.
The story ends: God punished Abimelech for the evil he had done against his father by murdering his seventy brothers.
I saw a list somewhere that said there were thirteen judges (Abimelech’s name was on it).
But on my list – for now anyway – he’s got a pencil line through his name.

Note: quote from Judges 9:56 (NLT)