What’s in the Old Testament?

We commonly refer to the Bible as a “book” – in fact, it is the best-selling book of all-time.  However, the Bible itself is a collection of 66 individual books.  These books were written over approximately 1500 years, by 40 different authors, and in 3 different languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek).

Through the Holy Spirit, God inspired the authors to write His words and His message to humanity.  Each author brought their own experiences, concerns, and writing style…and as such, we have a variety of literature types within the Scriptures.  The major division of the Bible’s books is between the Old Testament and the New Testament.  For this blog post, we’ll look at what God has said in the Old Testament:

Old Testament – This is a collection of 39 books of ancient Hebrew literature, which begins with the story of Creation and the fall of humanity into sin, which separates all of us from God.  These texts continue through the establishment and history of the nation of Israel, which are broken down into 4 major categories:

Torah/Pentateuch – These are the 5 books of Moses.  Torah is Hebrew for “teaching” and Pentateuch simply means “five books”.  These books detail out how God created everything, but quickly focus in on the establishment of the nation of Israel.  The books include: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

History – These 12 books travel through Israel’s many ups and downs as they struggle between keeping in step with God and doing everything on their own.  Many of the familiar Old Testament stories are found in these books: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther.

Poetry/Wisdom – This is a collection of some of the most interesting and beautiful poetry you’ve ever read.  Many common sayings we still use today trace their origins back to this section of the Bible.  These books include: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon.

Prophecy – God sent many prophets to Israel throughout the centuries.  Their writings are divided into what is call the “Major Prophets” and the “Minor Prophets”.  However, that distinction has nothing to do with the importance of their individual message, rather the prophets’ writings are divided up by size, with the Major Prophets having significantly bigger texts than the Minor Prophets:

Major Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, and Ezekiel
Minor Prophets: Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi

After Malachi’s teaching, God did not send a prophet to speak to Israel for approximately 400 years.  Then everything changed with the arrival of Jesus. 

Some modern-day Christians have wondered if it’s worth our time to read and study the Old Testament.  After all, since Jesus came and saved us, wouldn’t His teachings be enough for us to focus on?

The Apostle Paul had to say this to the church he planted in Corinth, in reference to the events of the Old Testament:

1 Corinthians 10:11
These things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our instruction

There are three ways to learn – by instruction, by example, or the hard way.  God has given us instruction and examples in the Old Testament so we don’t have to learn the hard way.  As such, it’s definitely worth our time to see what God has to say in those books.

Keep Pressing,
Ken

I wouldn't pick me, either

When you were a kid and teams were being picked, were you ever the kid who was picked last?  Nobody wants to be in that position.  If you’re picked last, you’re essentially being told that if you weren’t there, you wouldn’t have been missed.  And if you’ve ever been picked last more than once…you start to expect it. 

When you are repeatedly at the bottom, you even begin to embrace it as “your lot in life”.  You see yourself as unworthy or even useless.  In retaliation to these feelings, you may even take on the mentality once stated by Groucho Marx: “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.”  So when someone actually chooses you…you reflexively don’t believe them, because bottom-level people don’t get picked for important jobs.

This is where Gideon’s story begins in Judges 6.  The nation of Israel was being kicked around by the neighboring land of Midian.  The Midianites stole Israel’s crops, destroyed the land, and took all the livestock.  This happened year after year, for seven long years, to the point that Israel was completely poverty-stricken.  Finally, the people of Israel called out to the Lord.

Judges 6:11-14
The angel of the Lord came, and he sat under the oak that was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash, the Abiezrite.  His son Gideon was threshing wheat in the winepress in order to hide it from the Midianites.  Then the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said: “The Lord is with you, valiant warrior.”

Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened?  And where are all His wonders that our fathers told us about?  They said, ‘Hasn’t the Lord brought us out of Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to Midian.”

The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and deliver Israel from the grasp of Midian.  I am sending you!”

While God doesn’t choose individuals for salvation, He does choose people, places, and things for specific service.  That’s what we’re seeing here.  At this point in the account, we might expect Gideon to get excited and finally feel validated to be chosen by God to do a great service – to be the one who rescues His people.  Instead, we see Gideon doing the opposite:

Judges 6:15
He said to Him, “Please, Lord, how can I deliver Israel?  Look, my family is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father’s family.”

From a society standpoint, Gideon had nothing going for him.  He didn’t have the proper linage.  The oldest son in a family was the default, next-generation leader – and Gideon was on the opposite side of that spectrum.  So when God said “Go in the strength you have and deliver Israel”, you can be certain that Gideon believed that he didn’t have enough strength to deliver anyone, let alone the entire nation!  After all, God approached Gideon while he was hiding out in order to secretly prepare food.  What “valiant warrior” sneaks around just to get his next meal?

The Lord’s answer to Gideon’s protests is the key to understanding the events that happened next. 

Judges 6:16
“But I will be with you,” the Lord said to him.  “You will strike Midian down as if it were one man.”

God reassured Gideon that he can do this work, because God will be with him.  Gideon wasn’t being sent off alone to figure it out along the way.  God would be there as well – to reassure and strengthen Gideon, as well as to fight against the Midianite army.  Like the Israelite’s stories of old, Gideon even saw several wonders (five of them, by my count), where God demonstrated that He was there and on Israel’s side.

God also promises to be with us believers in the church age.  Here are just two examples:

Matthew 28:20
And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God?  You are not your own, for you were bought at a price.  So glorify God with your body.

There is another famous verse along these lines.  While it’s famously misquoted, when it is read in context, we realize that Paul’s all things is referring to all things God has called me to do for Him:

Philippians 4:13
I am able to do all things through Him who strengthens me.

Whatever task or responsibility God has given each of us, we can be certain that He did not abandon us after handing out the assignment.  Even if we wouldn’t have chosen ourselves for this work…we are able to succeed because the Holy Spirit is in us, while Jesus promises to be with us and strengthen us.

Keep Pressing,
Ken

Less than perfect

Many of us could be mentors, but we choose not to be.  Oftentimes, it’s because we convince ourselves that our personal history or poor choices would prevent us from “doing anybody any good.”

In our minds we don’t expect mentors to be completely perfect, just mostly so.  We think that only Christians who have their lives in order and are living “comfortably blessed” are in a position to really help others.  However, when we look throughout the Bible, we find the opposite to be true.  God has, in fact, used some seriously flawed individuals – even some who had significant problems due to self-inflicted wounds – to mentor and guide others.

For about 300 years after Joshua led God’s people into the Promised Land, the nation of Israel was governed by various judges.  This period was marked by political, moral, and spiritual anarchy and deterioration.  Although some God-focused revivals occurred, the nation was in a continual downward spiral.  The last verse of the book of Judges best described the culture at that time:

Judges 21:25
In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did whatever he wanted.

By the end of this period, the corruption had also infested God’s appointed representatives – the priests.  A man named Eli was the High Priest at that time, with his two sons serving as priests under his supervision. 

1 Samuel 2:12-13, 17
Eli’s sons were wicked men; they had no regard for the Lord or for the priests’ share of the sacrifices from the people…they treated the Lord’s offering with contempt [because they took for themselves portions the Law had reserved as an offering to God].

1 Samuel 2:22-29
Now Eli was very old.  He heard about everything his sons were doing to all Israel and how they were sleeping with the women who served at the entrance to the tent of meeting.  He said to them, “Why are you doing these things?  I have heard about your evil actions from all these people.  No, my sons, the report I hear from the Lord’s people is not good.  If a man sins against another man, God can intercede for him, but if a man sins against the Lord, who can intercede for him?”

But they would not listen to their father, since the Lord intended to kill them.  By contrast, the boy Samuel grew in stature and in favor with the Lord and with men.

A man of God came to Eli and said to him, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Didn’t I reveal Myself to your ancestral house when it was in Egypt and belonged to Pharaoh’s palace?  I selected your house from the tribes of Israel to be priests, to offer sacrifices on My alter, to burn incense, and to wear an ephod in My presence.  I also gave your house all the Israelite fire offerings.  Why, then, do all of you despise My sacrifices and offerings that I require at the place of worship?  You have honored your sons more than Me, by making yourselves fat with the best part of all the offerings of My people of Israel.’

The problem is that Eli and his sons are supposed to represent the people to God and represent God to the people.  Eli had more than a passing knowledge of his sons’ long-running misdeeds and the disgrace they brought to God’s reputation.  God had given Moses direction on how to handle those in the community who blatantly disregard God’s laws:

Numbers 15:30-31
But the person who acts defiantly, whether native or foreign resident, blasphemes the Lord.  That person is to be cut off from his people.  He will certainly be cut off, because he has despised the Lord’s word and broken His command; his guilt remains on him.

These consequences were for the community at large, and Eli’s family held a much higher status.  Since he did not follow through with God’s prescribed consequence, Eli was showing preferential treatment of his own sons over God.  Because of this, God brings the prescribed punishment down on Eli, his sons, and the rest of their lineage:

1 Samuel 2:30-34
“Therefore, the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Although I said your family and your ancestral house would walk before Me forever, the Lord now says, “No longer!”  I will honor those who honor Me, but those who despise Me will be disgraced.

“ ‘Look, the days are coming when I will cut off your strength and the strength of your ancestral family, so that none in your family will reach old age.  You will see distress in the place of worship, in spite of all that is good in Israel, and no one in your family will ever again reach old age.  Any man from your family I do not cut off from My altar will bring grief and sadness to you.  All your descendants will die violently.  This will be the sign that will come to you concerning your two sons Hophni and Phinehas: both of them will die on the same day.’ ”

If God directly rebuked us like this, we would probably assume that we’re disqualified from any type of useful service toward God.  The consequences of self-inflicted wounds can become roadblocks to the ways we’ve previously served God, but that doesn’t mean we are completely useless to God the rest of our lives.

The punishments God told Eli eventually came true.  However, in the years between the sentencing and justice being served, Eli mentored another young man.  Samuel grew up to be one of the greatest prophets of Israel, and he shepherded the nation through some turbulent times.

Just because you’re down – it doesn’t mean you’re out.
Just because you have a “past”, or a “record”, or a “history” – it doesn’t mean you’re useless.
Just because God legitimately punishes us – it doesn’t mean we’re disqualified from mentoring others.

Keep Pressing,
Ken