Scripture Focus:  2 Kings 23.3
The king stood by the pillar and renewed the covenant in the presence of the Lord—to follow the Lord and keep his commands, statutes and decrees with all his heart and all his soul, thus confirming the words of the covenant written in this book. Then all the people pledged themselves to the covenant. (2 Kings 23.3)

Reflection: The Cost of Repentance
By Erin Newton

In the decade of being parents, disciplining our kids has been hard. Some punishments are too soft. Each kid responds differently. The message is missed. In all of our struggles to teach these little humans, we want them to understand the proper way of living before bad choices become unconscious habits.

As one of Judah’s most virtuous kings, the reign of Josiah is known for his religious reforms. Finally! The people had a leader who not only recognized sin but called it out, determined to live differently, and worked to get rid of it. The variety of statues, images, and structures destroyed reveals the wide-ranging idols the people worshipped. Their sin was not just in one area but in many. Fertility gods, gods of rain and weather, gods of the mysterious stars and planets, gods associated with death. The intensity of their sin can be seen in the vision given to one of the prophets (Ezekiel 8).

Removing these things was hard. It took time, incredible effort, and the cooperation of others. Can you imagine your way of life being uprooted? The Israelites were in error but they were comfortable in that state. Suddenly, change created a sense of uncertainty, shame, or fear. They began to let go of their idols. Instead of cultic prostitution and sexual gratification, they needed self-control. Instead of homes filled with shrines, their possessions were destroyed. Instead of working to produce idols or cultic objects, they had to start anew, doing work approved by God. It was good and right but equally difficult and hard.  

Jesus knew the price that must be paid to truly repent and avoid sin. “And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell” Matthew 5:30. I wonder how many one-handed people walked the streets of Israel during that time.  

How far will you go to remove sin in your life? Can you cut off your hand? What does that look like today? Maybe it is confessing sin to a trusted, mature believer. Removing facets of technology to prevent further struggles with pornography, lust, greed, or jealousy. Setting boundaries with contentious believers to protect the fragility of peace. Whatever it may be, the cost is worth it. 

Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting
My lips will sing with joy when I play to you, and so will my soul, which you have redeemed. — Psalm 71.23

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
2 Kings 23 (Listen – 7:43)
Hebrews 5 (Listen – 1:57)

Read more about Rumors or Repentance
When someone critiques you and calls you to repent, what will you do? Will you dismiss them with a rumor… with violence…or will you listen…?

Read more about A True Example of Repentance
Individuals, companies, leaders, and even industries wish…the benefits of repentance without the moral investment…the caché of repentance without the change it brings.

Scripture Focus: 2 Kings 22.13, 18-20
13 Great is the Lord’s anger that burns against us because those who have gone before us have not obeyed the words of this book; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written there concerning us.” 

18 Tell the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says concerning the words you heard: 19 Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I have spoken against this place and its people—that they would become a curse and be laid waste—and because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I also have heard you, declares the Lord. 20 Therefore I will gather you to your ancestors, and you will be buried in peace. Your eyes will not see all the disaster I am going to bring on this place.’ ” 
So they took her answer back to the king. 

Reflection: A Responsive Heart
By John Tillman

Josiah was 18 years into his reign when he discovered that what he grew up with as normal was angering to the Lord.

Josiah wanted to worship God but he was ignorant of many of God’s commands. Josiah didn’t realize how badly Judah’s system of worship had been corrupted. He had begun collecting money for refurbishing the Temple. It was through this activity that the scroll (probably Deuteronomy) was found. The previous generations so poorly handled the word of God that even when a generation came along that wanted to serve the Lord, they were handicapped. 

Those who came before Josiah corrupted the system. Josiah hadn’t hidden or lost the scroll. He had not set up any of the idols within God’s Temple. Ahaz, Manasseh, and other kings had done so. He hadn’t built temples to other gods. Manasseh and other kings, going all the way back to Solomon built them.

Yet, Josiah humbled himself rather than deny his connection to past sins. He repented and confessed sins of past generations. He set out to redress the wrongs done by his forefathers. He tore down their statues, idols, and temples. He desecrated their places of worship and refused to allow “normal” practices of the past to remain acceptable.

Josiah’s revival was unlike anything seen before. No king ever repented and turned back to God like Josiah. The writer references the Shema when describing Josiah’s repentance; he turned to the Lord with all his heart, soul, and strength. (2 Kings 23.25) 

This individual and national revival started with something difficult—a willingness to change one’s behavior in light of new information. How many of us can say we are always willing to do that? Josiah had a responsive heart. Do we?

When something we call normal is revealed to be sinful, how will we respond? When the Bible calls us to holiness, will we double-down on our desires? 

When systems or organizations we have grown up with are shown to be corrupt, will we stand with righteousness and demand change? Or will we excuse the past and refuse to acknowledge our complicity? When leaders we have loved are proven to be wicked, will we continue in their practices and defend them? Or will we hold them accountable and provide justice for victims?

Revival is always possible. The Lord will always relent. But only if we have a responsive heart.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Wake up, my spirit; awake, lute and harp; I myself will waken the dawn. — Psalm 108.2

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
2 Kings 22 (Listen – 3:45)
Hebrews 4 (Listen – 2:43)

Read more about Choices and Hard Hearts
Untended, our hearts harden and lean away from God. Only by continual cultivation will the soil of our hearts remain soft.

Read more about Are There Ashtrays in Your Elevators?
Like ashtrays in elevators, there are always systemic, tangible, widespread, societal enablements of sins.

Scripture Focus: 2 Kings 21.11-12, 16
11 “Manasseh king of Judah has committed these detestable sins. He has done more evil than the Amorites who preceded him and has led Judah into sin with his idols. 12 Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I am going to bring such disaster on Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle.

16 Moreover, Manasseh also shed so much innocent blood that he filled Jerusalem from end to end—besides the sin that he had caused Judah to commit, so that they did evil in the eyes of the Lord. 

Hebrews 3.5-6
5 “Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,” a bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. 6 But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory. 

Hebrews 11.37-38
37 They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated—38 the world was not worthy of them.

Reflection: Hidden in Christ’s Tree
By John Tillman

Israelites continued Canaanite idol worship, including child sacrifice. Manasseh sacrificed his own son. If the king did it, we can be sure that many leaders and followers did as well.

Modern readers often focus on titillating and exotic-sounding sins. Child sacrifice and idol worship involving sex grabs headlines in any era. However, focusing on these exotic sins can distance us from scripture, allowing a smug sense of superiority over ancient idolaters.

The prophets take a wider scope. It is unlikely the “innocent blood” (1 Kings 21.16) Manassah shed refers exclusively to child sacrifice. This phrase consistently highlights the oppression of the poor and the killing of God’s prophets. (Isaiah 59.3; Jeremiah 2.34; 7.6-7; 22.17; Hosea 4.2) The prophets cut to the heart of the sins of our age as well—to the oppression of the poor and misuse of power.

The non-canonical book, Ascension of Isaiah, tells us Isaiah hid in the hollow of a cedar tree while fleeing Manasseh. Manasseh found him and sawed the tree in half with Isaiah still inside it. Bible commentators believe Hebrews 11.37, “sawed in two,” may refer to this story. True or not, this symbolism is consistent with much of the scripture

Trees are symbols of God’s blessing throughout the Bible and many times kings and kingdoms are represented as trees in which birds and animals find shelter. But Israel and Judah were not trees that brought harvests of righteousness. Bloodshed and injustice bloomed.

The problem with idols is not only that they insult the one true God but also the evil that we do in their service. God wants his people to bless, not curse. It is part of the Abrahamic promise and Mosaic covenant. Christians are grafted into this covenant and included in this promise. (Romans 11.17-20)

God is holy. If we serve him faithfully, we’ll bless people with tangible and spiritual blessings. Idols are unholy, serving selfish desires. Following idols, even with the best of intentions, causes spiritual and tangible damage to people. Trees are known by fruit and orthodoxy by orthopraxy.

Isaiah may have died hidden within a tree. We have been hidden in Christ who died on a tree. (Colossians 3.3)
Like Isaiah, may we admit our own and our culture’s uncleanness (Isaiah 6.5).
We die to ourselves upon Christ’s cross: “the hope in which we glory.” (Hebrews 3.6)
United with him, we will not be abandoned to the grave but will rise with healing for the nations.


Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
“Because the needy are oppressed, and the poor cry out in misery, I will rise up,” says the Lord, “And give them the help they long for.” — Psalm 12.5

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.


Today’s Readings
2 Kings 21 (Listen – 4:06)
Hebrews 3 (Listen – 2:25)

Read more about Praying Through Ancient Hymns
It seems much of the most profound art in the church was originally intended for children. This hymn is one example…

Read more about A Hymn of the Oppressed
History might be very different if rather than idolizing the martyrs, we could study how not to become the oppressors.

Scripture Focus: 2 Kings 18.5-7, 28-32
5 Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. 6 He held fast to the Lord and did not stop following him; he kept the commands the Lord had given Moses. 7 And the Lord was with him; he was successful in whatever he undertook…

28 Then the commander stood and called out in Hebrew, “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria! 29 This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you. He cannot deliver you from my hand. 30 Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the Lord when he says, ‘The Lord will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’ 
31 “Do not listen to Hezekiah. This is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then each of you will eat fruit from your own vine and fig tree and drink water from your own cistern, 32 until I come and take you to a land like your own—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey. Choose life and not death!

Reflection: False Promises and Threats
By John Tillman

Hezekiah, king of Judah, is a breath of much-needed fresh air after the repeated depravity of the kings of Israel.

Hezekiah had the benefit of the counsel of some of the great prophets of the Bible. Isaiah, Micah, Hosea, and Amos all prophesied around this time. Isaiah even recorded his own version of the events of Sennacherib’s siege.

Sennacherib’s messenger promised that if Jerusalem surrendered they would eat “from their own vine and fig tree.” He was promising to bring the “good old days” back. The “vine and fig tree” quote originally refers to the golden years of Solomon’s rule (1 Kings 4.24) and is referenced by Micah in his prophecies (Micah 4.4). 

It is no mistake that Sennacherib’s silver-tongued messenger quotes the Hebrew scriptures to the people as he threatens them and attempts to entice them to surrender. Those who seek to manipulate us will often appeal to our nostalgia and our pride. “Don’t you remember how good life used to be?” “Don’t you remember how great your country was?” “All you have to do is surrender to our ideology and our interpretation of what God wants.”

The world co-opts the term of peace. But making peace with the world too often means surrendering our faith. Hezekiah took one of these threatening messages before God in the Temple and prayed over it. The next day the army withdrew, never to return. 

Pray this weekend, this prayer based on Hezekiah’s prayer in 1 Kings 19.14-17.

Lord, we are besieged with false promises and threats
They want us to join their parties, their factions, their empires.
They offer pacification instead of peace and retribution instead of righteousness.

We spread out their words before you…
“You’ll never have peace,” they say…
“Your faith is foolish,” they say…
“Your god is no different than any other god”…

We have no answer for them except to appeal to you.
We wish only to be worthy of your kingdom, rejecting all other kings.
To worship you, rejecting all other objects of worship.
Do not let your name be slandered.
Help us to stand amidst evil days holding out peace and righteousness.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Keep watch over my life, for I am faithful; save your servant whose trust is in you. — Psalm 86.2

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
2 Kings 18 (Listen – 6:52)
Philemon (Listen – 2:52)

This Weekend’s Readings
2 Kings 19 (Listen – 6:11), Hebrews 1 (Listen – 2:15)
2 Kings 20 (Listen – 3:39), Hebrews 2 (Listen – 2:47)

Read more about Political Promises
Sennacherib’s commander assumes a binary choice—rely on Egypt or rely on Assyria.

Read more about A Tale of Two Kings
Petitioning for God’s help is not our last resort. It is the first one.

Scripture Focus: 2 Kings 17.22-23, 26-29, 33, 40-41
22 The Israelites persisted in all the sins of Jeroboam and did not turn away from them 23 until the Lord removed them from his presence, as he had warned through all his servants the prophets. So the people of Israel were taken from their homeland into exile in Assyria…

26 It was reported to the king of Assyria: “The people you deported and resettled in the towns of Samaria do not know what the god of that country requires. He has sent lions among them, which are killing them off, because the people do not know what he requires.” 27 Then the king of Assyria gave this order: “Have one of the priests you took captive from Samaria go back to live there and teach the people what the god of the land requires.” 28 So one of the priests who had been exiled from Samaria came to live in Bethel and taught them how to worship the Lord. 
29 Nevertheless, each national group made its own gods…

33 They worshiped the Lord, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought. 

40 They would not listen, however, but persisted in their former practices. 41 Even while these people were worshiping the Lord, they were serving their idols. To this day their children and grandchildren continue to do as their ancestors did.

Reflection: “Everyone Is Doing It”
By John Tillman

Israel failed to bless the nations by teaching them to follow Yahweh, following their gods instead. After Israel’s exile, we see the nations literally brought into the promised land and taught, by imperial decree, to worship him.

The non-Israelite settlers were being killed by lions due to not worshiping Yahweh. So Assyria sent back an exiled priest tasked with teaching the people “what the god of the land requires.” This priest was only partially successful. “Even to this day,” the author says, the people continued mixing the worship of God with that of idols. 

It can be easy for us to shake our heads in judgment at ancient idolaters. “How simple and foolish they are,” we may think. We underestimate the impact of cultural influence.

”Everyone is doing it” only seems lame when you don’t have to live among the “everyone.” Children say “everyone is doing it” to their parents. Parents don’t live among their children’s “everyone” and so dismiss it as foolish. When children challenge their parents about adult behaviors, parents respond with the same answer, “everyone is doing it.”

We find it easy to not worship a fertility god who guarantees good crops because we aren’t farmers living in a culture in which everyone around us is doing it. (Instead, we live in a culture that believes “knowledge is power” and we are all addicted to streams of content, articles, feeds, news channels… “Everyone is doing it.”)

We underestimate the cultural influence that we are under. Those baked in the culture of western Christianity THINK that we are operating from a neutral theological and cultural position but our culture’s yeast is worked all through our dough. Our culture has a huge influence on our theology and the way we live out our faith. It is hubris to think otherwise. 

Why do we worship God? So that we may not fall prey to lions? So that our kings may not be conquered? So that we can dwell in the land in peace? Selfishness and power can’t grow faith.

Assyria conquered the land but couldn’t enforce worship. We also will fail to force others to faith. Faith cannot be crushed, no matter how powerful the government, but it can’t be forced either. It must grow on its own. All we can do is plant seeds like the priest and pray that God will make them grow.

Divine Hours Prayer: A Reading
Jesus went on to say, “What is the kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it with? It is like a mustard seed which a man took and threw into his garden: it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air sheltered in its branches.” — Luke 13.18-19

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
2 Kings 17 (Listen – 7:19)
Titus 3 (Listen – 2:05)

Read more about Kingdoms Breaking Bad
As Israel fractures, each dynasty hopes to be the answer. But each one, especially in the northern kingdom, “breaks bad.”

Read more about Paul’s Stance on Gentleness
May we tear down arguments and strongholds, but never people for whom Christ died.