Medicine Hat Joe

Week 23 Jeremiah

Chapter fifteen is ominous. The Lord said that even if two stellar characters like Moses & Samuel begged him to cut Judah slack he wouldn’t do it. The only thing that Judah could expect (actually there were four things) was Death War Famine & Captivity (and the next verse piles on a follow-up Quartet of Destroyers). It’s pretty grim.
As I’m reading along I’m kind of lulled into a dark reverie where I don’t bother thinking much about what’s behind the Death-War-Famine-Captivity (best guess is idolatry disobedience injustice and like that). So I’m jolted when I read why: because of the wicked things Manasseh son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, did in Jerusalem.
Manasseh! I posted on Manasseh last month when I was reading 2 Chronicles. He was an outrageously terrible king. One of the worst. But then that maybe-most-despicable king repented. And he was forgiven.
I go back and reread the story. Manasseh was humbled. He called out to the Lord. The Lord heard him forgave him restored him saved him.
Looked like everything was good.
But now I see that everything wasn’t good.
I don’t exactly understand the inner workings of the system but Manasseh had been instrumental in importing a bunch of the worst possible evils into Judah. And unfortunately his repentance didn’t make the effects magically disappear.
Manasseh was forgiven but his evils hung around. Now compensation was required.

Note: quote from Jeremiah 15:4 (NLT). Manasseh’s story is in 2 Chronicles 33.

Week 23 Proverbs

I noticed it in chapter seven where a guy is willingly seduced sexually by an energized woman – the thing about the way. The story starts when the eyes-wide-open guy: takes the way to her house (where I guess he got his racy & tantalizing sexual experience). At first I was thinking about the issue of Pre-Sexual-Activity Decision-Making. But then Solomon goes on to say that the guy discovers – or will discover – that the woman’s place is just a whistle-stop on a longer trip. In reality: her house is the way to Sheol, descending to the chambers of death.
So then it occurred to me that even though Solomon  was talking about an erotic adventure that wasn’t all he was talking about.  He was thinking about things that take me along the-way-that-leads-to-the-grave.
I got out a wordbook and looked up the word way. Most of the references in Proverbs 1-9 fall into either Way #1 or Way #2. Way #1 is the way of evil the way of evil men the way of the wicked the way to Sheol and the evil way. Way #2: the way of the good person the way of wisdom the way of life the way of righteousness the way of understanding.
Proverbs – at the simplest level – is recommending Way #2 as its preferred option.
So as enigmatic & indecipherable as Solomon might get at some points, here at the front end he’s presenting me with a pretty basic choice.

Note: quotes from Proverbs 7:8 & 27. References to Way #1 – 2:12, 4:14, 4:19, 7:27, 8:13, & Way #2 – 2:20, 4:11, 6:23, 8:20, 9:6 (NASB)

Week 23 Jeremiah

Jeremiah begins his book with the account of how the Lord gave him his assignment as a prophet. There were two things I noticed.
The first was that there was a Pre-Life Element to Jeremiah’s story that he wasn’t likely aware of. Something earlier was going on. The Lord told him: I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my spokesman to the world. So…that’s pretty interesting since my guess is that most modern people don’t much buy into the idea of pre-conception goings-on (unless they belong to, say maybe an eastern religion that does believe there are pre-conception goings-on). But the Lord tells Jeremiah that his Material-World Day One was not the point when things got rolling. They were rolling quite a bit before his birth day.
The other thing is that the Lord told Jeremiah: you must go wherever I send you and say whatever I tell you. And don’t be afraid of the people, for I will be with you and take care of you. Since I was reading 2 Chronicles a couple of weeks ago I remember what happened to Jeremiah. He didn’t exactly have a fun-filled & carefree life with no opposition antagonism ill-treatment disrespect and like that. So when I see the Lord saying this thing about I-will- be-with-you-and-take-care-of-you I won’t be translating that as meaning a week in Hawaii.

Note: quotes from Jeremiah 1:5 & 7-8 (NLT)

Week 22 Proverbs

A couple of days ago I was reading the introduction to Proverbs and I wanted to get clarification on the word discipline so I looked at another version of the bible.
One version used the word discipline and the other said instruction. A third version also said discipline (so I wondered if I could use a Majority-Rules rule to break the tie).
I also saw that one version said equity but the other two said fair.
One said clever. The others prudence.
One said purpose. Two: discretion.
But then I saw that all three agreed that: the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
None of them thought up an alternate word for fear. I looked up fear in an old paperback thesaurus and saw things like bad-feeling fright danger anxiety apprehension dread panic. Like that. None of which sound so great.
I’m concerned about fear and I’ve noticed that sometimes my bible has a marginal substitute: revere. Revere adds something to fear. Which is good because I figure there’s something different about fearing the Lord than, say, being terrified by a zombie.
I checked a word book. Fear was used at least 400 times in the OT. More than a hundred of those were about fearing the Lord.
I need to think more about fear. Solomon says that fearing the Lord is a prerequisite to knowledge. Mandatory Step One.
Start with fear…then move on from there.

Note: quote from Proverbs 1:7 (NLT NIV & NASB)

Week 22 Proverbs

I finished reading Nehemiah yesterday. Near the end of the second-last chapter I saw this: for in the days of David and Asaph, in ancient times, there were leaders of the singers, songs of praise and hymns of thanksgiving to God
The reason I mention it is because while I was reading that exact verse I had one of those weird & sudden & unsettling out-of-the-blue questions flash into my mind. It was: why in the world am I reading this book because the whole exercise seems like such a pointless and stupid waste?
The question doesn’t come up too often. Occasionally it just kind of drifts out like a puff of smoke seeping through a crack in the ground from a sulfurous subterranean cave. It’s a here-then-gone question. But it smacks me with a powerful emotional Whap! A disregardable question that’s tough to disregard.
Anyway I started reading Proverbs this morning and in a nice follow-up coincidence Solomon starts out by giving a pretty good answer to my question: why in the world am I reading this because it seems like such a pointless and stupid exercise?
Solomon says: the purpose of these proverbs is to teach people wisdom and discipline, and to help them understand wise sayings. Through these proverbs, people will receive instruction in discipline, good conduct, and doing what is right, just, and fair.
None of which sound pointless and stupid.

Note: quotes from Nehemiah 12:46 (NASB) & Proverbs 1:2-3 (NLT)

Week 22 Nehemiah

If someone found out I was reading through the bible and he put me on the spot by saying he wanted a brief synopsis of the OT what would I say? Other than: Uhhhhhhh……………………?
If my mental faculties were operating anywhere near full capacity I’d be smart to refer to Nehemiah. In chapter nine there’s a thirty-three verse public prayer & review of history section that covers lots of the major topics – from Genesis 1 to the return of the exiles.
Reading nine this year the thing that really registered was how many times the Lord is mentioned as being the Major Player in Israel’s history. There are thirty-seven references to the Lord doing things all along the way. For example:
You preserve and give life
You displayed miraculous signs
You came down on Mount Sinai
You gave them bread from heaven
You helped our ancestors conquer great kingdoms
You sent them deliverers
You rescued them repeatedly
You sent your Spirit
You showered your goodness on them
Like that.
37-actions in 33-verses. What’s that? 1-action every .9-verses?
Can’t really get around it. If I want to synopsize the OT the Lord’s intervention is a big part of the synopsis.

Note: quotes from Nehemiah 9:6, 10, 13, 15, 22, 27, 28, 30, 35 (NLT). End of month reading note: I finished Nehemiah and the book of Psalms today. My reading total is 931-pages. So I’m staying ahead.

 

 

Week 21 Psalm 148

Psalm Summary: everything that’s created should praise the creator.
On the surface it sounds plausible until you read on a bit and see that the writer included in the Everything category: a) created things that actually have – as far as I can see – the capacity to praise and b) created things that – as far as I can see – lack the capacity.
I can see where an angel has the capacity to praise the Lord. But not a star. I can see that a man has the capacity to praise the Lord. But not hail. I sit wondering what I can do at this border that divides what I think I see from what I don’t.
I have no problem understanding how all created things that can think & communicate can praise the Lord. But the writer names several created things – snow and cedar trees – that cannot think or communicate but that are supposed to praise the Lord.
From my perspective I’m tempted to say definitively that a limestone cliff cannot praise the Lord. But since I don’t know every thing that there is to know maybe I should back up. Maybe a wall of limestone – that can be shown by 21st century detection-technology to be absolutely and totally inanimate and beyond any measurable capacity to communicate – is emanating some kind – a qualitatively different kind – of praise.
I’m not saying limestone hums. I’m just saying I don’t hear it.
But it’s something to keep on the back-burner.

Week 21 Psalm 146

Everybody knows that when you’re in a jam it helps to have an influential helper.
So I paused when I got to where it said: don’t put your confidence in powerful people; there is no help for you there.
I’m tempted to think that – in the normal pattern of things – 146:3 should read: put your confidence in powerful people because that’s where you’ll get help. But it doesn’t and this looks like another case where I’m just reading along and I find out that something I figured was reliably true isn’t.
What’s the writer driving at?
Well for one thing he fast-forwards and says this about Currently Powerful People: when their breathing stops, they return to the earth. And he contrasts that with the Lord: the Lord reigns forever.
If I could pin the writer down I wonder whether he might admit that well, technically-speaking a Powerful Person could give you some brief & temporary assistance.
But I’m really not so sure he’s saying even that. I figure maybe he’s coming at it from the viewpoint that the help of powerful people is roughly equivalent to no help at all. After all he did say: there is no help for you there.
The idea seems to be that when you need any kind of help go to someone who can actually help you.

Note: quotes from Psalm 146:3, 4 & 10 (NLT)

Week 21 Ezra

When Ezra wrote Ezra he was writing history in chapters 1-6 and then autobiography in 7-10.
1-6 is the story of what happened during the time of Zerubabbel; 7-10 is the story of Ezra – and there’s fifty or sixty years between the two stories (it’s like talking about the Cuban Missile Crisis and then I jump into talking about the new carwash opening next week in Medicine Hat).
Anyway the Ezra-section of Ezra says two pretty interesting things about Ezra. First it says: Ezra was a scribe, well-versed in the law of Moses. Then it says: Ezra had determined to study and obey the law of the Lord and to teach those laws and regulations to the people of Israel.
So that’s a kind of time-lapse synopsis of Ezra:
He was well-versed in the law
He’d decided to study the law
He’d decided to obey the law
He’d decided to teach the law to people.
Those things didn’t happen on consecutive days. At some point – even though he doesn’t explicitly say so – Ezra probably just started by reading-through. Then as he kept reading-through he eventually became well-versed in the law. That right there is an excellent MHJ Reading Goal: keep reading-through until you get well-versed in the bible. Getting well-versed is a significant accomplishment.
Of course Ezra didn’t stop at Well-Versedness. But getting to the well-versed stage was a gigantic step.

Note: quotes from Ezra 7:6 & 10 (NLT)

Week 21 Ezra

Chapter four sneaks up on me.
Cyrus the Great had let the exiles return to Jerusalem.
They started rebuilding the temple but in chapter four got stalled by opponents.
Looks like they were stalled through the time of Cyrus…
Stalled through the time of Darius…
Stalled through the time of Xerxes…
Stalled into the time of Artaxerxes.
So it looks.
The way chapter four is written I get the sense that the writer is going through a story of Four Temple Stalls: Cyrus’ then Darius’ then Xerxes’ then Artaxerxes’. One-after-another. But then in chapter six he says the stalled temple rebuild was restarted. And completed by Darius’ sixth year.
I looked up the four rulers online:
Cyrus 559-530 BC
Darius 522-486 BC
Xerxes 486-465 BC
Artaxerxes 465-424 BC
If the temple was built by Darius’ sixth year it was built by about 516. Long before Xerxes and Artaxerxes. Xerxes and Artaxerxes stalled something but not the temple. It was already built. So if I’m thinking that Cyrus & Darius & Xerxes & Artaxerxes all stalled the temple project I need to rethink that.
I wonder why the writer didn’t make it more obvious for me. I don’t figure he was trying to jerk me around. Maybe he decided to group three similar situations (something like: oh, by the way Darius wasn’t the only oppositional episode). Or maybe he thought he had a smarter reader: no problem if I flash-forward. He’s got a brain…He’ll figure it out for himself.

Note: see the stalls in Ezra 4:5-7