Medicine Hat Joe

Week 12 1 Samuel

I finished reading 1 Samuel today and since the book ends on a dark note my mind drifted a bit, I guess turning away from the gloom. I remembered yesterday I found a connection between Psalm 54 and the two Ziphite Betrayal stories in 1 Samuel so I thought I’d get my mind off Saul being impaled on a wall by doing a quick search to see if there were other psalms with a 1 Samuel connection.
The easiest way was to check psalm subtitles that identified other David-on-the-lam stories. I found six that seemed pretty definite: 34 52 54 56 57 59. The subtitles spelled out events from 1 Samuel. And the editors of my bible added cross-references to those exact stories. So that helped.
When I was done I sat asking myself: what-was-the-point-of-that?
I’m not saying there was no point. I think I was just miffed that I didn’t have time to do anything with what I’d found. But my guess is that if I took time I’d likely find some useful tips about what to expect and how to react when I’m under the gun.

Note: Psalm 7 sounds like an on-the-run psalm but there wasn’t a cross-reference; Psalms 18 & 63 might refer to stories from 2 Samuel – I was looking at 1 Samuel; so I didn’t include those three. Added note: since I’ve only read up to Psalm 72 this year I didn’t look for subtitles from 73-150. The point? Don’t take my references to the bank.

Week 12 1 Samuel

A couple of weeks ago I read Psalm 54. Its subtitle said: a meditation of David, regarding the time the Ziphites came and said to Saul, “We know where David is hiding.”
So yesterday I got to the story where the Ziphites came to Saul and said: we know where David is hiding – the story behind psalm 54. But then the Ziphites showed up again in my reading today and told Saul: David is hiding on the hill of Hakilah, which overlooks Jeshimon. The margin of my bible cross-references both of these Ziphite Betrayal stories to Psalm 54. I’m not too sure what to make of that.
Q: Is psalm 54 a meditation on the first story or the second? Or both?
A: I don’t know.
That’s okay because my real bonus is finding the events behind the psalm. I see that when David says violent men were trying to kill him he was talking about Saul.
David’s reaction is pretty good the way it rises above the circumstance. Saul is trying to kill him but David can say: God is my helper. The Lord is the one who keeps me alive.
I don’t get the sense David will be letting down his guard. But he admits that staying-alive was in the Lord’s hands.
David’s Rule: I’ll do everything in my power to stay alive but I know that everything I do isn’t everything that will get done.

Note: quotes from 1 Samuel 23:19, 26:1 & Psalm 54:6 (NLT)

Week 11 1 Samuel

A while back I heard an audio recording of a talk about the David & Goliath story. The guy said the story is baffling unless you understand what’s really going on. And what’s really going on is that David was not as inferior – and Goliath wasn’t as fearsome – as you might think. In fact David was so dangerously lethal – and Goliath so physically deficient – that an informed person wouldn’t be surprised by the outcome.
It was a pretty interesting intelligent perceptive & well-told tale. And surprising too since it turned the bible story on its head so that D&G is not about weakness-overcomes-strength. It’s about strength camouflaged-as-puny vs. feebleness disguised-as-power.
Creative as it is I don’t get the impression the revised version is the point the bible writer was making. David told Goliath: you come to me with sword, spear, and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord Almighty…Today the Lord will conquer you, and I will kill you and cut off your head. The writer isn’t saying David is stronger than he looks. He’s saying the Lord would conquer the giant, and David would just finish him off.
When I’m reading through it isn’t illegal to think my own thoughts about what the bible’s saying. At the same time I figure it isn’t up to me to decide what a writer was actually thinking. He gets to make his own point.

Note: quote from 1 Samuel 17:45-46 (NLT). Speech by Malcolm Gladwell.

Week 11 1 Samuel

The story of Samuel meeting David’s family and then choosing David as the king-to-be is a pretty interesting one.
Jesse had eight sons and he & Samuel went through a kind of Future King Selection Process. They didn’t have explicit directions from the Lord about how to run it so decided to go with common sense categories like birth-order maturity qualifications experience strength appearance physical-size & like that. But almost right away the Lord tipped Samuel off about something he should have already known: don’t judge by his appearance or height…The Lord doesn’t make decisions the way you do! People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at a person’s thoughts and intentions.
I underlined the section in my bible because it’s a useful thing to remember: the Lord doesn’t make decisions the way I do. He takes other things into consideration, invisible internal unknown things. Things I don’t see or care about. So he has a vision advantage. By contrast I’m going into a dark room with my sunglasses on.
The idea sticks with me; concerns me a bit too.
I turn it around: I don’t see things the way the Lord sees them. He and I don’t see eye-to-eye.
Seeing the wrong way isn’t that much better than being blind. So I can have an argument with myself about who sees best, the Lord or me. But it’s a goofy debate if I’m the one with glaucoma.

Note: quote from 1 Samuel 16:7 (NLT)

Week 11 1 Samuel

The story of Saul is one of the most dejecting long stories of the OT.
Even though Samuel features The Big Three – Samuel-Saul-David – Saul dominates the first book. After chapter eight he’s in every chapter except twelve & twenty-five. So that’s twenty+ chapters of material on Saul. Way more than lots of other characters.
The storyline of Saul is this – Saul was a guy who started well but finished in a disastrous mess.
He was such a quality guy at first: big strong good-looking humble unassuming helpful fair just. The bible says that Samuel told him: God is with you. It also says: God changed his heart; and that: the Spirit of God came upon him. So Saul started out in a big way, a good way. Pretty definitely on the Lord’s side.
But then in chapter thirteen and again in fifteen he stumbled – badly; disastrously; catastrophically.
A weird thing I notice as I’m reading thirteen & fifteen is that I kind of understand Saul. Feel sympathetic. His crazy excuses make some sense to me.
But I know it’s a misplaced sympathy because by chapter fifteen Saul has fully turned his back on the Lord. After that point depression insecurity envy fear murderous-animosity & duplicity are what characterize Saul. And in the end he turns to the dark side of the spirit world for help.
The main reminder I take from Saul? Concentrate on finishing.

Note: quotes from I Samuel 10:7, 9, 10 (NASB)

Week 11 1 Samuel

When Samuel told Saul he’d be Israel’s first king you get the sense that Saul kind of believed him but still had doubts. So to help convince Saul Samuel forecast several things that would happen that day.
A long time ago I saw a Look magazine Q&A that asked a well-known guy – a guy who did not believe God existed – what evidence could convince him that God did.
The guy said: I think that if I heard a voice from the sky predicting all that was going to happen to me during the next twenty-four hours, including events that would have seemed highly improbable, and if all these events then proceeded to happen, I might perhaps be convinced at least of the existence of some superhuman intelligence.
I remembered the answer today because Samuel did almost exactly that. I counted at least sixteen specific & highly improbable events Samuel forecast. For example, when Saul got to the oak tree at Tabor he’d meet three men headed for Bethel – one with three goats, one with three loaves of bread, one with a wineskin.
The ability to flawlessly know the impeccable future is scary-impressive.
Not even fortune-cookie manufacturers know the explicit-and-detailed future. Nobody does. So when somebody does then I know he’s doing something that can’t be done. And if something that can’t-be done can-be then I have a decision to make.

Note: quote from The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell (no publishing details: (1953?)). Story from 1 Samuel 10:1-7.

Week 11 1 Samuel

It’s easy to feel sorry for Eli.
He seemed like a pretty good guy. After he’d accused Hannah of drunkenness he realized his mistake and so then he blessed her – and she was blessed. Then later Eli treated Samuel with understanding sensitivity and alert advice when the Lord had come to the unsuspecting boy in a night vision.
But Eli was flawed in a key way. His sons were ripping off people who came with their sacrifices. They were also taking sexual advantage of young women who worked at the Tabernacle. Eli gave them a mild reprimand. They disregarded him.
You’ve gotta wonder why he didn’t get more animated about correcting Hophni and Phinehas because on at least two occasions the Lord spoke to him about it.
The first time by a prophet: why do you scorn my sacrifices and offerings? Why do you honor your sons more than me?
The second time through Samuel: I have warned (Eli) continually that judgment is coming for his family, because his sons are blaspheming God and he hasn’t disciplined them.
So whatever glimmers of quality shone in Eli they didn’t outshine the thing the Lord had explicitly & repeatedly told him to do, which he explicitly & repeatedly didn’t.
Eli might have been kind sympathetic understanding. But he was weak and indecisive and deaf to the voice of the Lord and unwilling to put the Lord ahead of his boys.

Note: quotes from 1 Samuel 2:29, 3:13 (NLT)

Week 10 Ruth

The book of Ruth begins with a story about a decision two young widows had to make.
Naomi had lived for years in Moab. Her husband and her two sons had died there. So now she was heading back home. She must have been a pretty fine mother-in-law because her in-law-ed girls wanted to go with her.
The three of them packed up and left. But Naomi stopped right there by the last-ditch and gave Ruth & Orpah a final chance. It’s better if you stay here: things are far more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord himself has caused me to suffer.
Ruth & Orpah stood there in the sun at their crossroad on the way to Judah with a decision to make.
Naomi had painted a pretty hopeless picture of her own chances. So, on second-and-last-thought Orpah decided to go back home. Her choice makes sense when you think about it. Staying was a bit safer, a bit more secure. Better safe than sorry.
But Ruth told Naomi: don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. I will go wherever you go and live wherever you live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.
Leaving home. Emigrating. Converting. Big choices but for Ruth safe wasn’t better. Security wasn’t part of her calculus.
So Orpah went back to safety but Ruth kept heading west.

Note: quotes from Ruth 1:13, 16 (NLT)

Week 10 Judges

It’s a bit of a relief to finish reading Judges.
Judges has two trends happening. One is the up-&-down ping-pong pattern through the book that looks like this: Israel follows the Lord > Israel starts following other gods > disaster strikes > Israel prays for help > the Lord sends a judge. Up-&-down like that.
Then the second pattern is just basically down. It’s like if I draw a line on a page from the upper left to the lower right. From left to right along that line I can draw a saw-toothed bunch of ups-&-downs. There are ups for sure, but over time the ups are all trending down.
So it’s no surprise that Judges ends with two unpleasant stories – well, the second-last story is grim; the last one is distressingly terrible.
In the second-last story a Levite became a priest-for-hire for a private household. Then he traded up to become the idol-worshipping priest for the whole tribe of Dan.
The second story is about another Levite. It’s as gruesome as any story you’ll find in the bible. The outcome is civil war. Benjamin’s tribe almost joins the pterosaurs.
The 37-page Book of Judges shows a lot of Israel descending from good to bad to dysfunctionally ghastly. A kind of broken-down, pretender-federation of states that did – as Judges says – whatever seemed right in their own eyes.
Which in their case was wrong.

Note: one Levite story is Judges 17-18; the other is in 19-22. Quote from Judges 21:25 (NLT)

Week 10 Psalm 60

At the end of psalm 60 David asked the Lord for divine assistance because, as he put it: all human help is useless. So it reminded me how the bible sometimes says things in an unmodified way.
Saying that all human help is useless is unqualified enough that it makes me wonder if it needs some qualification.
Because – after all – I’m human so I tend to think that sometimes human help is useful and so I don’t much like the idea that all human help is useless. I wonder…if I could show that some human help is actually useful in some circumstances then I could say that it’s not quite accurate to say that all human help is useless.
But if I can legitimately say that some human help is useful then why does the bible say here that all human help is useless? Or I can ask a more general question. If the bible says something without any qualification and I can think-up a qualification then where does that leave me? Where does it leave the bible?
I think psalm 60’s all-human-help-is-useless comment is just one more example of the kind of puzzling content that a bible reader runs across during the reading year.
Reading through I’m finding out what-it-says. But I can’t seem to escape things that make me wonder why-it’s-said.

Note: quote from Psalm 60:11 (NLT)