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Ah, the joys of teaching the Old Testament!
I am not the Old Testament scholar by a long shot, but I thoroughly enjoy teaching the Old Testament to college freshmen. In my setting I teach to students in a Christian college, many of whom probably grew up in church. Yet… they don’t know the Old Testament. Where I have the most fun (besides Song of Songs) is Judges.…
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Gideon — Lost vision
Gideon is a great example of what happens when the people of God lose the vision of who they are in God. They were called to take out the inhabitants of the land. That was the command from God. They simply did not obey. Oppressed, we find Gideon hiding out. To grind grain, he was using a winepress to fool…
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Ruth — Beauty Among the Ashes
The Book of Ruth should be read when you read the Book of Judges. The biggest advantage is realizing that among the blood lust of Judges there is a beautiful story of redemption. Reading Judges will be a tough read. Realize it’s not about the book telling us what is “right.” It is giving us a story of what is…
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Scariest verse in the Old Testament
Then she called, “Samson, the Philistines are upon you!” He awoke from his sleep and thought, “I’ll go out as before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had left him. (Judges 16:20, NIV) To live in such compromise, playing around with the gifts of God so much, that there is a point where you think…
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It’s War
One of the key paragraphs of Judges is interesting: These are the nations the Lord left to test all those Israelites who had not experienced any of the wars in Canaan2 (he did this only to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience):3 the five rulers of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites living in the…
Tag: Judges
