I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. I hope that by posting these ruminations others may get some benefit as well. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them. I hope that the Spirit is moving in others through these posts as the Spirit has definitely been convicting me.
When word spread among the peoples living in the land of Canaan that the Israelites had crossed the Jordan on dry ground the people living there became paralyzed with fear. The passage tells us that Joshua had to have all of the men circumcised because the Israelites had not circumcised those who were born while they were in the wilderness. They camped on the plains of Jericho until they were all healed. Then they celebrated Passover and the feast of unleavened bread.
God instructed Joshua that the Israelites were to march around Jericho once a day for six days with the priests blowing the horns. On the seventh day they were to march around the city seven times with the priests blowing the horns and at the end of the seventh circuit all of the people were to shout loudly. Joshua followed this command, instructing the people to not speak a word until he commanded them to shout. Joshua further instructed the people to destroy everything in the city not made from metal. The objects made from metal were to be kept for the treasury for the Lord’s House. They were to kill everyone in the city except for Rahab’s family. On the seventh day when the Israelites completed the seventh circuit of the city and gave a loud shout, the walls of Jericho collapsed. The Israelites rushed in and completely destroyed the city.
However, one man kept for himself some of the items which were supposed to be dedicated to God. As a result when Joshua sent a force against the city of Ai, the men of Ai routed the Israelites. Joshua and the other leaders of the Israelites prostrated themselves before God. God told Joshua that someone had stolen items that were to be dedicated to God and instructed Joshua to have the people of Israel spend a day of preparation. Then he was to have the people of Israel present themselves by tribe. God would point out which tribe the miscreant belonged to. That tribe would present itself by clans, then the guilty clan by family and then each member of the guilty family. Once the guilty party had been identified, he and all of his possessions needed to be destroyed.
Tax collectors and other sinners came to listen to Jesus teach. The Pharisees began to criticize Him for associating with them. This led Jesus to tell several parables. The first one was about a shepherd who lost one of his sheep. The shepherd will leave the 99 other sheep and go searching for his lost sheep. When he finds it he will react with joy and call his friends and neighbors to celebrate with him. His second parable is about a woman who loses one of ten coins and puts a tremendous amount of effort into finding it. Again she will call her friends and neighbors to celebrate with her when she does find it. Reading these parables I ask myself two questions. The first is, am I working as hard as the people in these two parables to find those who are lost and attempting to bring them home? The second question is just as important, do I celebrate when one of the lost finds their way home? Not just, “Yay, good for you!” but call all my friends and have a parade down main street. OK, maybe not a parade down main street, but we as Christians should be as excited about someone coming to know the Lord as we are when our home town team wins a championship. Does our congregation react to a new Christian the way a city reacts to its baseball team winning the World Series?
Or, are we more like the older brother in Jesus’ third parable? The third parable in today’s passage is thoroughly familiar to most of us. It is the parable of the prodigal son. The story is basic. The younger of two sons asks his father to give him his inheritance while his father was still alive. By doing this the son was saying that he wished his father was dead. He wanted his independence and his freedom, but he also wanted a share of the wealth that his father had accumulated. The father granted his son’s request and the son went off to live his life as he saw fit. This soon led to the end one should expect of such decisions. The young man had wasted all of his resources and had failed to develop any skills to acquire more. He ended up working for people who treated him terribly. He realized that his father treated even the hired hands better than his current employers treated him and decided to go home and beg his father to give him a job. He vowed to throw himself on his father’s mercy and beg his forgiveness. But on his way home his father was watching for him and saw him long before he got there. His father rushed out to greet him and before the young man realized what was happening his father was hugging him and welcoming him home. The son told his father that he recognized what a bad son he was and that he did not deserve to be treated as a son any longer. The father ignored the son’s protestations and called for his servants to clean the young man up and dress him in fine clothes. Then the father called for a feast.
This raises several points. Do we recognize how badly we have treated God? Do we recognize how completely undeserving of God’s love we are? The son went looking for his father, but long before he got there his father came and found him. That is how God treats us. When we were lost and began searching, long before we understood what we were looking for, God came out and found us.
But the story goes on. When the older brother found out that his brother had returned, he did not celebrate with his father. Rather, he was resentful of his father expending resources on his brother. Before we get too judgmental of the older brother let us look at things from his point of view. His younger brother had caused his father immense pain. The older brother had seen his father looking out over the fields to see if his younger brother was coming home. He had seen his father grieve for the loss of his son. He had worked even harder to make up to his father for his brother’s mistreatment of him. Then when his brother comes back after all of this time, his father not only welcomes him back as if nothing had happened, but throws a lavish party for him, something the older brother had never experienced. All too often we sit in judgment of the older brother without thinking that Jesus never tells us how he responded when his father explained why it was appropriate to throw a party for the younger brother. I think that was deliberate. Jesus was telling us that it was natural to feel the resentment that the older brother felt. The question is, how do we respond when our Father explains to us why He is throwing a party? Do we continue to sulk? Or do we recognize our Father’s joy and join Him in celebrating our brother’s return? I pray that I always celebrate with God when one of His prodigal sons (or daughters) return to Him.
The psalmist calls on us to praise God for all the good He has done for us. He tells us that God has offered to lift the burdens from our shoulders and ease the difficulties of the tasks we need to accomplish. When we cry out to Him He will save us (and He has done so in the past). If we refuse to bow to other gods, listen to God and follow His ways, He will subdue our enemies and provide us with the finest food. I will praise God and strive to follow His paths in all parts of my life.
Those who are wise accept discipline and listen to instruction, but fools mock those who rebuke their bad behavior. Let me always listen to those who confront me about my flaws and strive to correct my behavior. Let me not attempt to justify my failures and mock those who choose to treat others well.