Balaams and Balaks :: Readers’ Choice

Selected by reader, Brian, from Washington D.C.
I get angry at church leaders that promote one candidate or politician…Not at the politician. It breaks my heart because my secular neighbors tell me how much they hate the church because of the hypocrisy of our leaders.

Scripture Focus: Number 22.6
Now come and put a curse on these people, because they are too powerful for me. Perhaps then I will be able to defeat them and drive them out of the land. For I know that whoever you bless is blessed, and whoever you curse is cursed.

Reflection: Balaams and Balaks :: Readers’ Choice
Originally published May 13th, 2019
By John Tillman

Last week we celebrated the bravery of the prophet, Nathan, who confronted King David with his sins and described the terrible consequences that would be the result of the king’s actions.

This week’s readings begin with a very different prophet—one who could not be further from the ethical stance of Nathan—Balaam. Balaam is not concerned with whether what the king wants is right or moral. He does not care about reconciling men or nations to God as Nathan does. Balaam’s prophecies are for sale. But rather than allow Balaam to put words in his mouth, God puts his words in Balaam’s mouth.

God takes extreme measures. He causes Balaam’s donkey to speak to him to get his attention. Then, once Balaam sees the threatening angel, God sternly warns Balaam to only say what God tells him to say. Although God speaks through Balaam, there is no relationship of love or trust—no expectation of good faith.

In the end, Balaam says what God commands. This could be because he is overwhelmed by the visions or because he is simply obeying out of fear of the angel who threatened him. Scripture does not tell us.

Perhaps the best lesson we can learn from Balaam is that there will always be prophets willing to buddy up to powerful, political leaders. These modern Balaams do their best to put words in God’s mouth that are pleasing to the powerful.

There are many political leaders today who are just like Balak. They want prophets of God to come to them, stand with them, worship with them, and bless their evil practices and desires. And there are many Balaams in the world today who claim to speak for God and yet seem willing to tickle the ears of the powerful in exchange for assurances of influence and power.

As God’s people, we can’t do much about the Balaams or the Balaks of the world. We must leave them up to God, for he is more than able to deal with them according to their sins.

Instead, we must simply keep serving our God and following him through our desert of sojourn. When the Balaams look down on us, may they be unable to deny the beauty of the love of God that is among us.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
Give thanks to the Lord of lords, for his mercy endures for ever. — Psalm 136.1-3

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

Today’s Readings
1 Samuel 3 (Listen – 3:03) 
Romans 3 (Listen – 4:30)

Thank You!
Thank you to our donors who support our readers by making it possible to continue The Park Forum devotionals. This year, The Park Forum audiences opened 200,000 free, and ad-free, devotional content. Follow this link to join our donors with a one-time or a monthly gift.

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Read more about Resisting Herods
The conditions in which the gospel makes its way in the World have little to do with influence and wealth and power.

No Princes :: Readers’ Choice

Selected by reader, Jason from Texas
If our faith in God is based on people, then it becomes like a reed in the wind, swaying with every economic downturn and electoral cycle.

Scripture Focus: Psalm 146.3
Do not put your trust in princes,
    in human beings, who cannot save.

Reflection: No Princes :: Readers’ Choice
Originally published July 11th, 2019
By John Tillman

How many believers veil their trust in men as trust in God? This can cause problems in two ways. 

In the first, it can cause otherwise faithful people to bend over backward to defend a corrupt leader because to admit that the leader failed or that corruption was present would reflect badly on God’s work. Or it might even mean that the man was never “God’s man” in the first place and we had been duped by him. Unable to admit this, we rally to support and deny any accusation or attack, deaf to evidence or appeal.

The second is, in a way, the equal and opposite reaction. It causes people to believe that they must abandon faith in God because of a leader who broke faith or gave into corruption or abused his power. (It is almost always a man who does this…) Unable to separate their faith from the identity of the leader, they abandon faith.

In both of these cases, the followers’ faith was never in God in the first place.

Let us pray using some of the words of Psalm 146, asking God to protect our faith from even resting a little finger on the unworthy foundation of princes or kings or leaders. May our faith be built solely and solidly upon Jesus, his cross of suffering, and his glorious resurrection.

No Princes
Do not put your trust in princes,
    in human beings, who cannot save.

The princes of this land cannot save us, nor do they intend to.
Their fine bracelets are shackles.

When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
    on that very day their plans come to nothing.

Even the greatest of princes will die, will fall, will fail.
Their plans will come to nothing and that nothing will come to those who trusted in them.

There is only one prince we must serve—the Prince of Peace…

He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets prisoners free
The Lord gives sight to the blind,
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down,
The Lord loves the righteous.
The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

May we befriend the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow.

And may we live to see the ways of the wicked frustrated, the chains of the prisoners fall, the blind lead us on with new sight, the bowed down rise up to run.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting
Out of Zion, perfect in its beauty, God reveals himself in glory. — Psalm 50.2

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

Today’s Readings
1 Samuel 2 (Listen – 6:09), 
Romans 2 (Listen – 4:13)

Thank You!
Thank you to our donors who support our readers by making it possible to continue The Park Forum devotionals. This year, The Park Forum audiences opened 200,000 free, and ad-free, devotional content. Follow this link to join our donors with a one-time or a monthly gift.

Read more about When Nations Pray :: Worldwide Prayer
Help us to incarnate a gospel that evangelizes and emancipates those in need as a real and relevant demonstration of our living Christ.

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Let our community hear how your faith has grown. What post helped you heal?

Jericho’s Wall :: Readers’ Choice

Selected by reader, Barbara, from Chattanooga
Following God is His call on us. We don’t “deserve” anything. Some hard, and exciting lessons in this story!

Scripture Focus: Joshua 5.13-14
Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” 
“Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.”

Reflection: Jericho’s Wall :: Readers’ Choice
Originally published July 3rd, 2019
By John Tillman

If you ask Christians how the inhabitants of Jericho responded to Israel and their silent marching around the city, most will probably say they taunted them and that the point of the story is that the Israelites demonstrated faith by following God’s strange plan despite being made fun of. This is a complete fabrication. There is no textual evidence to suggest that the Israelites were teased or taunted at all by Jericho.  

Scripture doesn’t shy away from a great taunt. The scriptures are full of them. God himself delivers sharply barbed taunts. Even Jesus gently taunts Nicodemus. But no taunts are recorded here.

Jericho wasn’t in a taunting mood. They were terrified. No matter how funny the French Peas are in a Veggie Tales video, the reality is that scripture tells us multiple times how terrified everyone in Canaan was of Israel, but it never tells us once that they taunted Israel or made any comment about God’s plan of marching around the city.

It’s not difficult to see why Jericho was terrified. This gigantic group of former slaves destroyed the entire army of Egypt—the world-wide superpower of its day. Today, this would be comparable to the United States military being wiped out by an opponent. Then this same group traveled through the desert completely destroying any king or nation that stood up to them. Then, these desert-crossing, dangerous, religious fanatics show up at Jericho’s border, crossing the river without permission and in a miraculous fashion.

One possible reason for our extremely poor handling of scripture, in this case, is that, when teaching children, we are so uncomfortable with the idea of God ordering the Israelites to wipe out an entire city, we need a distraction. “Perseverance amidst taunting” is a kinder-gentler lesson to teach children. 

This erroneous reading of scripture turns the power dynamic upside down allowing us to feel “persecuted” like the Israelites and justified in destroying our enemies.

But God isn’t interested in destroying people we call our enemies. If the commander of the Lord’s army was not on Joshua’s side, we can rest assured that the commander of the Lord’s army is not on “our” side today. Especially if we define our side so narrowly as to exclude those outside of something so meaningless and trivial as a political party.

The lesson of Jericho’s wall is not that God’s plans are weird, and people will make fun of us, but we should follow God anyway. The lesson of Jericho’s wall is that it is God who initiates judgment, not us. The lesson is that we don’t deserve what God has given us and that if we are unfaithful, we too will face God’s wrath and no wall will stand in its way.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Cry of the Church
Even so, come Lord Jesus! — Revelation 22.20

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

Today’s Readings
Ruth 2 (Listen – 3:56) 
Acts 27 (Listen – 6:09)

This Weekend’s Readings
Ruth 3-4 (Listen – 6:24), Acts 28 (Listen – 4:56)
1 Samuel 1 (Listen – 4:13), Romans 1 (Listen – 5:02)

Thank You!
Thank you to our donors who support our readers by making it possible to continue The Park Forum devotionals. This year, The Park Forum audiences opened 200,000 free, and ad-free, devotional content. Follow this link to join our donors with a one-time or a monthly gift.

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Let our community hear how your faith has grown. What post helped you better understand the Bible?

Read more about Over Jordan
On the other side of the river is the land that is promised, the land of blessing, the land of freedom, the land of rest, the land of satisfaction and plenty.

Prayer of Intercession from Australia :: Worldwide Prayer

Scripture: Romans 16.1-4
I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Cenchreae. I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been the benefactor of many people, including me.

Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus. They risked their lives for me. Not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them.

The response stirred by owning Christ’s heart and mind— as the prayer below requests—must look something like the actions of Phoebe, Priscilla, and Aquila—noted in part above. They were not only financial benefactors of the Gospel and those who spread it, but willingly risked their lives on its behalf. All Christians today still owe them a debt of gratitude.  —  John

Reflection: Prayer of Intercession from Australia :: Worldwide Prayer

Creator God, all compassionate Father,
Source of life whose heart is passionate towards all,
May we, your people, be cameos of your love and
compassion to a hurting and fragile world.

Daily we are confronted with the harsh reality of violence, greed,
abuse, unrest, and tragedy. Stir our response by owning your heart and mind.

May we be courageous in challenging injustice,
Ready to listen but hesitant to judge,
Willing to welcome the outcast,
Diligent in seeking and claiming truth.
Oh God of hope,
Your light never fails, is never extinguished.
Warm our hearts with the fire of Christ’s love so that wherever we go we will communicate Jesus Christ.

In His divine name we pray.

*Prayer from Hallowed be Your Name: A collection of prayers from around the world, Dr. Tony Cupit, Editor.

The Request for Presence
Satisfy us by your loving-kindness in the morning; so shall we rejoice and be glad all the days of our life. — Psalm 90.14

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

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Job 12 (Listen – 2:21)
Romans 16 (Listen – 3:30)

Struggling with the Word

Scripture: Romans 15.14
I myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another.

Reflection: Struggling with the Word
By John Tillman

Jeannette Clift George, in her book, Troubling Deaf Heaven, relates her early struggles with God’s word.

Someone told me to read the Bible until I understood something from the reading. After an hour of intense reading I threw my copy of the Bible across the room and cried aloud to God, “Yes, I have learned something! I have learned that I don’t understand your Book! Now can I stop reading it?” And then, still muttering over the details of my problem, I went over and picked up my Bible, with it’s tossed pages all askew, and read again. My early Bibles show the wear and tear of my struggle.

Truly enough Kierkegaard asserts that the Bible is easy to understand and we merely feign misunderstanding to shirk its demands on us. However, many of us, especially in the early steps of discipleship and study, do struggle with it.

This is in part because we often approach the Bible as consumers, treating it as a store full of solutions to our problems. When we do this, we easily are overwhelmed by its shelves, confused by its organization, and frustrated by seemingly inexplicable products. But the Word of God is not a catalog of helpful quotes, and our approach to it must be more than scholarly or no amount of gleaned facts will feed our faith.

We can only hope to gain meaning from God’s Word by listening for his voice—personally calling to us. George continues:

Then, one day, one reading, all of a sudden I saw me in the Scripture. My need—my question for the day, my tears for the evening, my fears for the morning, me—in God’s Holy Word. That made all the difference in the world.

That’s why I keep praying even when God’s silence infers the communication is out of order. I found me in his Word because he put me there. God put me in his Word that I might hear him in the silence, that I might hear him in the midst of arguments with him, that I might know that he knows me and loves me because he said so.

In our rhythms of prayer and reading, we do not pursue mastery of content as much as we pursue a relationship with the Master of the content—a relationship with the Holy Spirit that goes beyond bringing the text to life and joins us in walking through our life.

The Request for Presence
I long for your salvation, O Lord, and your law is my delight. — Psalm 119.174

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

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Job 11 (Listen – 2:01)
Romans 15 (Listen – 4:32)