Author: John Tillman

Links for today’s readings:

Read: Judges 18 Listen: (4:39) Read: Hebrews 5 Listen: (1:57)

Scripture Focus: Judges 18.23-25

23 As they shouted after them, the Danites turned and said to Micah, “What’s the matter with you that you called out your men to fight?” 24 He replied, “You took the gods I made, and my priest, and went away. What else do I have? How can you ask, ‘What’s the matter with you?’ ” 25 The Danites answered, “Don’t argue with us, or some of the men may get angry and attack you, and you and your family will lose your lives.”

Reflection: Resist Weaponizing Spiritual Things

By John Tillman

In The Book of Eli, Denzel Washington (Eli) carries a Bible he has sworn to protect across a violent, post-apocalyptic United States.

A brutal, book-obsessed warlord named Carnegie (played by Gary Oldman and not-so-subtly named to reference Andrew Carnegie, famous for building libraries) demands Eli give it to him.

After many fighters die trying to take the Bible, Carnegie’s lieutenant questions whether “a book” is worth the spilled blood and spent resources. Carnegie responds, “It’s not a book. It’s a weapon. A weapon aimed right at the hearts and minds of the weak and the desperate.”

The final chapters of Judges share a similar apocalyptic brutality with the film. When everyone did “as they saw fit,” (Judges 21.25) wicked hearts were exposed and chaos and violence reigned.

Levites were intended to live in their own towns and serve all the tribes at the Tabernacle. However, Micah hired a Levite to serve at his private shrine of “household gods.” Seemingly ignorant of all the laws they were violating, Micah said, “Now I know that the Lord will be good to me…” (Judges 17.13)

When warriors from the tribe of Dan made the Levite a better offer, he left with them. Micah pursued, crying, “You took my gods and my priest! What else do I have?”

Micah’s cry, “What else do I have?” is partially correct. It is good to recognize, “Whom have I in heaven but you?” However, we mustn’t forget the second line: “And earth has nothing I desire besides you.” (Psalm 73.25)

Micah, the Danite warriors, and the fictional Carnegie had mercenary attitudes about God, worship, and his ministers. They valued the things of God as personal weapons and tools to enrich and comfort themselves.

Beware of developing mercenary attitudes toward God, ministers, or the Bible. The Bible isn’t a weapon for winning earthly arguments. Ministers should serve everyone, not one political tribe. God doesn’t owe us blessings in exchange for worship, especially when our worship is often polluted with false “household gods,” like political and cultural ideologies.

God won’t be anyone’s mercenary and he looks unkindly on weaponizing the Bible for earthly purposes. Don’t surrender spiritual things to those who want to weaponize them to obtain earthly things.

No spoilers, however, in the film Carnegie can’t use the Bible even after winning it in battle and Eli still guards it even after it is taken from him. So may it be with us.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Morning Psalm

The Lord is King; let the people tremble; he is enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth shake.
The Lord is great in Zion; he is high above all peoples.
Let them confess his Name, which is great and awesome; he is the Holy One.
O mighty King, lover of justice, you have established equity; you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob. — Psalm 99.1-4

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summer
by Phyllis Tickle

Read more: Keep Drinking the Milk of the Word

In Hebrews chapter 5, the author wishes to discuss complicated topics…But…the readers are not ready for such theological complexity…

Keep Drinking the Milk of the Word

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Links for today’s readings:

Read: Judges 14 Listen: (3:35) Read: Hebrews 1 Listen: (2:15)

Scripture Focus: Judges 14.2-4

2 When he returned, he said to his father and mother, “I have seen a Philistine woman in Timnah; now get her for me as my wife.” 3 His father and mother replied, “Isn’t there an acceptable woman among your relatives or among all our people? Must you go to the uncircumcised Philistines to get a wife?” But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me. She’s the right one for me.” 4 (His parents did not know that this was from the Lord, who was seeking an occasion to confront the Philistines; for at that time they were ruling over Israel.)

5 Samson went down to Timnah together with his father and mother. As they approached the vineyards of Timnah, suddenly a young lion came roaring toward him. 6 The Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him so that he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat. But he told neither his father nor his mother what he had done. 7 Then he went down and talked with the woman, and he liked her. 8 Some time later, when he went back to marry her, he turned aside to look at the lion’s carcass, and in it he saw a swarm of bees and some honey. 9 He scooped out the honey with his hands and ate as he went along. When he rejoined his parents, he gave them some, and they too ate it. But he did not tell them that he had taken the honey from the lion’s carcass.

Reflection: Out of the Strong, Something Sweet

By John Tillman

In the middle of the Great Depression, with Hitler advancing in Europe, two sons of Jewish immigrants, from the Netherlands and Ukraine, created an iconic American hero—Superman.

In Superman, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster reimagined Moses cast on the water to be raised by a powerful princess as a powerful alien cast through space to be raised by poor farmers in America’s heartland. Superman is an alien immigrant from another planet with super powers.

However, what makes Superman heroic is not Kryptonian physiology but Kansan philosophy. His moral core is a greater power than his physical strength. In the most recent film version, Clark’s adoptive father tells him, “Your choices, your actions, that’s what makes you who you are.”

Despite some simplistic teachings that cast Samson as the Bible’s “Superman,” Samson is not Superman, nor is he a super man. Samson’s choices make him who he is. Those choices make him less like the prophet Moses and more like the plagues Moses called down.

Samson was an instrument of judgment but not an instrument of wisdom. As much as we might cheer for the mighty and wicked that he threw down, we must also mourn for the potential he wasted.

Samson is strangely similar to the apex-predator lion that he fights and kills. Samson’s line about the lion, “out of the strong, something sweet,” could be an unintentional prophecy about himself. The lion’s fate is a mirror of Samson’s. We might say, “Out of the destroyer, something just…Out of the sinful, something righteous.”

God consistently chooses imperfect vessels for carrying out his purposes. God is an expert at turning actions meant for evil into something good. (Genesis 50.20) That does not mean that we can act with impunity, like Samson did, following our lusts and anger.

We cannot blame “God’s sovereignty” for our choices or actions. “God made me this way” is no more a defense for the anger of an executive who screams at workers than it is for the lust of a philanderer who takes sexual advantage of others.

If our choices make us who we are, many of them make us sinners. However, the most significant choice that affects our identity is accepting the gospel and being conformed to the image of Jesus. (Romans 8.29) We trust in the Son of Man rather than any super man. It is out of his strength we have the sweetness of the gospel.

Divine Hours Prayer: A Reading

Jesus taught us, saying: “Come to me, all you who labor and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your soul. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.” — Matthew 11.28

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summer
by Phyllis Tickle

Read more: Underdogs Gone Wrong

Leaders called and used by God often “go wrong,” yet biblical authors rarely feel obligated to point it out. They expect us to notice.

Underdogs Gone Wrong

Read more: Don’t Empower Villain Eras

The problem of sorting the Bible into “heroes” and “villains” is forgetting that the same person who is heroic in one moment can be villainous in another.

Don’t Empower Villain Eras

Links for today’s readings:

Read: Judges 12 Listen: (2:21) Read: 1 Peter 4 Listen: (2:50)

Scripture Focus: Judges 12.4-6

4 Jephthah then called together the men of Gilead and fought against Ephraim. The Gileadites struck them down because the Ephraimites had said, “You Gileadites are renegades from Ephraim and Manasseh.” 5 The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan leading to Ephraim, and whenever a survivor of Ephraim said, “Let me cross over,” the men of Gilead asked him, “Are you an Ephraimite?” If he replied, “No,” 6 they said, “All right, say ‘Shibboleth.’ ” If he said, “Sibboleth,” because he could not pronounce the word correctly, they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites were killed at that time.

Photo Information: Our photo today is of a visitor to the memorial complex for victims of the Armenian Genocide which occured in 1915-1916. It is often called the first genocide of the 20th century and is the event which caused the term to be created.

Reflection: Weaponized Shibboleths

By John Tillman

Ephraim was Manasseh’s closest fellow tribe. They were Joseph’s sons. Jacob had reversed their birth order when he blessed them, placing Ephraim, the younger son, over Manasseh, the first born. (Genesis 48.14-20) It’s possible this old controversy kept some inter-tribal hostility simmering in the background.

After Jephthah’s victory, Ephraim showed up indignant at being left out and threatened Jephthah. A similar conflict happened between Ephraim and Gideon after his victory. Gideon defused Ephraim with diplomacy and self-deprecation. (Judges 8.1-3) Jephthah’s prideful hostility sparked the confrontation, blowing it up into civil war.

Ephraim called Gilead (a sub-clan of Manasseh) “renegades.” Other translations render this, “fugitives” or “survivors.” Jephthah knew the pain of exile and this insult must have stung. Jephthah’s anger wasn’t satisfied with winning the argument or the battle. He became genocidal.

Jephthah, like many judges and biblical leaders, started out a sympathetic underdog, accomplished something beneficial, but then “went wrong” in tragic ways. This civil war between brother tribes shows the depths of darkness, chaos, and violence Jephthah succumbed to.

Jephthah’s forces defeated Ephraim and took control of the border, blocking Ephraim’s only escape. Then they strictly policed the border, using Ephraim’s regional accent to sort friend from foe and continue their genocidal slaughter. From this passage, “Shibboleth” has become a word meaning a group identity marker. Typically shibboleths are used to exclude, and in Jephthah’s case, to kill.

However, markers of identity can be positive. In a famous episode of The West Wing, titled “Shibboleth,” a group of Chinese Christian refugees seek asylum in the United States. President Bartlett must evaluate both the group’s claim to be Christians and their asylum claim, the group’s spokesperson says to him, “Faith is the true…Shibboleth.”

Like Manasseh and Ephraim, we should be brothers. We should not be dividing and conquering our family of faith or our communities. And yet… We have simmering hostility instead of hospitality and factiousness instead of fraternity. We vaunt superiority and denigrate servanthood. We celebrate domination and are suspicious of democratic cooperation. Civil wars begin with factions such as this.

To avoid the dark path of Jephthah, we need gentle answers that turn away wrath and leaders who turn down the temperature of conflicts. Instead of weaponizing Shibboleths against brothers, sisters, and citizens, we should dissolve factions based on hatred and unite around the love scripture commands. (Leviticus 19.18, 34; Deuteronomy 10.19; Matthew 22.35-40; John 13.34-35, 15.12; 1 Corinthians 16.14; 1 Peter 4.8)

Leaders who weaponize Shibboleths should be resisted.

Divine Hours Prayer: A Reading

Jesus taught us, saying: “I give you a new commandment: love one another; you must love one another just as I have loved you. It is by your love for one another that everyone will recognize you as my disciples.” — John 13.34-35

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summer
by Phyllis Tickle

Read more: Marks of Leadership — Selflessness

Tests of leadership are almost always connected to selflessness.

Marks of Leadership — Selflessness

Read more: Abimelek, Caesar, and Jesus

Believers today who feel a religious compunction to political violence are serving an idolatrous, man-made religion, not Jesus.

Abimelek, Caesar, and Jesus

Links for today’s readings:

Read: Judges 11.12-40 Listen: (5:53)   Read: 1 Peter 3 Listen: (3:30)

Scripture Focus: Judges 11.23-24, 30-31

23 “Now since the Lord, the God of Israel, has driven the Amorites out before his people Israel, what right have you to take it over? 24 Will you not take what your god Chemosh gives you? Likewise, whatever the Lord our God has given us, we will possess.

30 And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord: “If you give the Ammonites into my hands, 31 whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”

Reflection: Allowing Injustice to Save Face

By John Tillman

Before going to war, Jephthah asked the king of Ammon why he was attacking them. Ammon’s king responded with “alternate facts” and manufactured historical claims that he lost land to Israel that he never possessed.

Jephthah corrected the record. Israel held the land for 300 years and Ammon never possessed the land. Jephathah claimed the land was given by God. As part of this argument, Jephthah reasoned, “Will you not take what your god Chemosh gives you?” (v 24) This argument has a hint of theological trash-talking “Can your god take what our God gave us?” Jephthah’s attempt at diplomacy was short-lived and he informed the king of Ammon that the result of the battle would be up to Yahweh.

Jephthah was correct about history and that the battle was theological. But he was wrong about Yahweh.

In W.W. Jacob’s story, The Monkey’s Paw, a cursed monkey’s paw fulfills wishes through a mysterious and malicious power. For example, when a family wishes to pay off their mortgage, their son dies in a factory accident and the factory pays the family the wished-for amount.

If Jephthah wanted to make a sacrifice of thanksgiving after his victory, scripture clearly described how. None of scripture’s sacrifices resemble Jephthah’s vow. Jephthah contrasted Yahweh with Chemosh, but then treated God as if he was a transactional, deal-making Canaanite deity. He treated Yahweh like a monkey’s paw. Jephthah’s vow was to his pride, not God. He saved face rather than his daughter.

When we make rash vows to God or promises on his behalf, we fall for Jephthah’s error. God did not then and does not now demand dramatic vows or sacrifices. That’s how the world works, not how God works.

Those who rule over us, tell us a false history—they own us and we owe them. They expect vows of loyalty for blessings. God corrects the record. The sacrifices God requires from us are a broken spirit and a contrite heart, not extravagant promises. The obedience God requires is to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly, not to proudly swear and boast, refuse to be merciful, and allow injustice to save face.

God is not a monkey’s paw god who extracts a price from us for blessings. God has paid the price through Jesus. He has disarmed the powers and set us free. Every blessing we need is ours in him.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting

Whom have I in heaven but you? And having you I desire nothing upon earth. — Psalm 73.25

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summer
by Phyllis Tickle

Read more: Timbrels to Tears

May this remind us that our faith is not a formula, nor is faithfulness a series of divine negotiations that we can manipulate…

Timbrels to Tears — Readers’ Choice

Read more: Rulers with Borrowed Scepters

Jesus is the king we are waiting for—every other ruler is using a borrowed scepter.

Rulers with Borrowed Scepters