Medicine Hat Joe

Week 11  Joshua 3

The last roadblock to Israel getting into the Promised Land was the Jordan River. The Jordan wasn’t exactly the Amazon. But it was flooding its banks right then…so not the freeway either.
The Lord told Joshua to get twelve priests to carry the Ark of the Covenant into the river. He forecast that when they did: the flow of water will be cut off upstream, and the water will pile up there in one heap.
Joshua footnoted that the river would be dammed-up at the town of Adam. I check a map and see that Adam is about thirty kilometres upstream. One practical thing that concerns me is how long the priests are left standing in the Jordan. If the water is travelling at – let’s say – ten kms./hour they’d be standing for about three hours before the water already below the dam had stopped flowing past.
But that’s a side issue. Joshua makes the real point pretty clear at the end: the Lord your God dried up the river right before your eyes, and he kept it dry until you were all across, just as he did at the Red Sea when he dried it up until we had all crossed over. He did this so that all the nations of the earth might know the power of the Lord, and that you might fear the Lord your God forever.

Note: quote from Joshua 3:13 & 4:23-24 (NLT). The story is in Joshua 3:6-17.

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.

Week 9  Deuteronomy 8

Moses was doing a thinking-out-loud exercise about how things would go for Israel once they had moved into Canaan. He projected two alternatives:
Alternative #1 was that once Israel settled-in and got established they would logically just: praise the Lord…for the good land he had given them.
Alternative #2 had a similar beginning but ended differently. In that scenario:
a) Israel would settle-in
b) over time they’d get more prosperous
c) eventually they’d become very successful
d) they’d chalk up their success to hard work & entrepreneurial skills
e) they’d feel good about their achievement. And then they’d…
f) forget about the Lord.
Points a) b) c) d) & e) look like pretty normal steps along the path to personal wealth-building success. But according to Moses the critical intersection was the Point e) because it was the pause-and-think moment: the time to be careful! Beware that in your plenty you do not forget the Lord.
In normal financial-economic thinking Point f) is where Moses goes off-the-rails because he starts bringing a religious idea into the mix. But for him the religious idea was the fundamental underpinning of the whole scheme: it is the Lord your God who gives you power to become rich. Points a) – e) aren’t detachable from Point f). In fact everything rides on it.
No self-respecting financial-advisor is going to move past Point e).
But Moses’ point is that disregarding the fountainhead of prosperity is a mammoth & crucial & lunatic & first-order omission.

Note: quotes from Deuteronomy 8:10,11, 18 (NLT)

Week 9  Psalm 57

A Sunday prayer for pray-ers in the city on the Dnieper…
Please have mercy on all of us today Lord. And please have mercy on me
We’re surrounded by an army with rifles and tanks…I feel like I’m alone in a boreal forest on a moonless night hearing the howls of a wolf pack getting closer…
Our enemies tricked us…trapped us…isolated us. Now they’re here to take our city…overrun our country…
I’ll do whatever I can under the circumstances…but in the end I know my real refuge and hope is you and I’m going to depend on you until this disaster has passed
Lord…you’re higher than the heavens…you transcend the world
You’re the only sanctuary my soul has
Inside me – in my spirit – I’m confident in you
I’m even going to sing to you…I’m going to get together some instrumentalists and we’ll sing your praises together
I’m certain that your gigantic love is operating
I know your faithfulness outshines everything else
I’m asking you to show us that gigantic love…that excelling faithfulness
Lord…like I said before you’re higher than the heavens…you transcend the world
Please help us. Please rescue us from our adversaries.

Note: this is a reorganized & paraphrased prayer from Psalm 57…put together in this order of verses: 1 4 6 1 5 1 7 7-9 10 3 11 3

Week 8  Deuteronomy 6

Moses explained an important connection between the Lord and the ten commandments: fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands. So there’s a link between complying with the 10Cs and with fearing the Lord. I checked three different bibles and they all used the word “fear”. Exactly what the Lord-10C linkage is and how it works is something for the back-burner. Right now the single issue about fearing-the-Lord is more important to me.
I used to have a repeater nightmare where I’d wake up petrifyingly afraid. But when Moses talks about fearing-the-Lord I’m pretty sure it’s not nightmare fear. So if that’s not what it is then what is it?
I checked a fourth bible and it said “deep reverence”. It makes pretty good sense to me to classify fear-of-the-Lord in the same family as reverence. Revering someone might be a subspecies of fear… Subtle or finely-pointed fear… Something more like an excited not-quite-trembling nervous uncertain respectful cautious don’t-want-to-mess-up elevated-heartrate expectant awestruck admirative-verging-on-panic psychically-weighted-with-ominosity and just-don’t-say-anything-stupid veneration. Something like that. Which isn’t happiness. But it’s not nightmare fear. It’s a fear that fits the circumstances.
If I meet someone who’s awesomely and spectacularly superior to me then I start naturally behaving like I’m standing with awesome & spectacular superiority. Which seems like a totally suitable and understandable class of afraidness.

Note: quote from Deuteronomy 6:2 (NIV).

Week 8  Deuteronomy 1

After Mount Sinai Moses began adjudicating the Sinai laws single-handedly but eventually he realized it wasn’t a one-man job. So he delegated judges who were responsible for subgroups of people – smaller units of 1000s & 100s & 50s & right down to groups of 10.
I got out a calculator. The military census in Numbers said there were about 600,000 men in camp. That meant 60000 judges for groups of 10 & 12000 for 50s & 6000 for 100s & 600 for 1000s. Total = 78600 judges (minimum) (a lot of judges).
With 78600 assistants to help apply the 700 or 800 laws Moses’ labour shortage was solved.
But then the supplementary question cropped up: can my 78600 helpers do the job properly? Answer: not necessarily. Judges are people too. So Moses also introduced a multi-point Character Assessment Test.
It wasn’t about whether the guy was a team-player or had a good sense of humour. Moses’ judges had to have wisdom & good judgment & life experience & impartiality & resistance to influence & reverence for the Lord & honesty & immunity to graft.
Good laws + good-quality judges = an effective legal system.
Good laws + derelict judges = a degraded legal system.
Moses’ laws were good in the abstract. But how real-life-effective were they? About as effective as the character quality of the 78600 judges that adjudicated them.

Note: see Deuteronomy 1:9-18 & Exodus 18:13-27