Ruth and the Concubine

“Behold, there was his concubine lying at the door of the house, with her hands on the threshold. He said to her, ‘Get up, let us be going.’ But there was no answer.” – Judges 19:27-28

“At midnight the man was startled and turned over, and behold, a woman lay at his feet! He said, ‘Who are you?’ And she answered, “I am Ruth, your servant. Spread your wings over your servant, for you are a redeemer.’” – Ruth 3:8-9

Reading through the Bible as we have been, I noticed for the first time the odd parallelism between the scenes in Judges 19 and Ruth 3. Both deal with an Israelite man (Levite, Boaz) and a woman of relatively low status (Ruth, a foreigner; the concubine, a secondary wife or slave). Both occur in the time of judges. Both occur not far from Jerusalem: in Gibeah, four miles north, and Bethlehem, five miles south. Both are detailed stories vividly told in the context of very little mention of God by the narrator. In both, a man wakes from sleep to find a woman lying prone near his feet. One occurs at the threshold of a door; the other on a threshing floor. Both are surprising situations. Both impact the course of an entire nation. 

The contrasts are even more striking. Consider simply what is spoken and what is not. Even before he knows who she is, Boaz asks for a name: the concubine has no name and is treated as chattel or worse. Ruth speaks her name; she asks for and receives protection. The Levite asks nothing. He expresses no sympathy or shock at what he finds, offers no protection. His words are chilling, and he receives no answer. We see the end of a so-called “marriage” in one scene; the beginning of a marriage in another. We see death and dismemberment in one; new life in the other—the restoration of name and property, the joining together of new limbs in the birth of a son who would be in the lineage of Christ. 

The Bible really goes to the darkest places, doesn’t it? But also into the brightest. Five chapters away from one of the most evil stories we’ve encountered up till now, there arrives its counterpart: a blazing beacon of protection, restoration, redemption, life. I don’t know why Ruth would have been given the chance to make the choices she did, to speak with the voice she did, and the concubine not. There is this tension throughout the time of judges between God’s covenantal grace and his judgment for disobedience. There are times we see sin in all its true horror—and perhaps we need to—and there are times when we see grace break out like the dawn. God will not leave us in the dark. The story of Ruth speaks really into the stories before it, to tell us this truth. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).

Slow To Anger

“Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly.” – Proverbs 14:29

I heard someone say once that the more kids you have, either the messier or the tidier you become. For me, it’s definitely the latter. Some of this is simply the influence of authors like Don Aslett and Marie Kondo, and coming to value simplicity. But some of it is a response to the inherent chaos of having four kids, which seems mitigated to me somehow by having a decluttered physical space. Sometimes, though, this can lead to a kind of material idolatry, where the natural accidents and entropies of parenting become an insult to my ability to maintain a sense of self in my possessions and space.

The other day, I was teaching Elijah piano (he makes the cutest clicking noise with his teeth whenever he plays a note on the beat) when I noticed Ellie trying to rub something off our big, wooden dining table. Then Dave joined. I could feel my heart rate rise as he started getting out various cleaning solutions. I arrived to find that a paint pen the kids had left out had leaked. The paint had pooled all day, resulting in a spill that had eroded the superficial layers of the table, leaving a large discolored, indented stain. 

As we tried everything to ameliorate the damage, without success, I could feel my frustration rising. I liked this table. It cost a lot. It would take more energy than I felt I had to figure out how to refinish it. The kids should have cleaned up immediately like I’m always asking them to. What I wanted to do was start yelling. I could hear myself beginning to talk with a sharp tone of voice, beginning to think the worst of everyone. At that point I left and went to another room.

This proverb is about breathing. The word for anger, aph, literally means “nostril” and refers to an anger that manifests in hard breathing. The words for quick-tempered are qatser ruwach, “hasty in the breath.” This verse is not talking about the kind of anger that is a righteous, steady opposition to evil. It is talking about the kind marked by speed and tachypnea. The kind that accelerates your breathing. The kind you feel before you think about. This verse is not saying that anger is always unfounded. It is simply saying that the smart thing to do is to slow it down. To let it accelerate is to exalt, or literally lift up, folly. To make yourself one who worships foolishness.

I’m pretty bad at this. I generally find I have to physically remove myself from the situation, sometimes even distract myself with something else, and wait until I feel myself calming down. As I did that night, a thought came clearly to me: the table is not eternal. The soul of your child is. It seems obvious, but that’s how foolish anger is, how much it distorts my perspective. We ended up painting over the stain and having a good talk about all the lessons it would remind us of. I told the kids mine was the importance of slowing down my anger and remembering what really matters.

Beware Gifts Without Fruit

“And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon and struck down thirty men of the town and took their spoil and gave the garments to those who had told the riddle. In hot anger he went back to his father’s house.” – Judges 15:13

Michael Wilcock writes about Judges 8: “Gideon… has become, even on the testimony of his enemies, a man of majesty (8:18) and strength (8:21). But there is something less than admirable at the heart of him, for all the development of his great abilities. Beware the gifts of the Spirit without the fruit of the Spirit!”

Gideon became a great leader, but his heart was filled with pride, fear and anger. We see this in increasing degrees with subsequent judges, most of all with Samson, who though he had the gift of physical strength, had a heart filled with an anger and impulsiveness. The gifts of the Spirit are things like helping, giving, teaching, administration (1 Corinthians 12-14 and elsewhere). The fruit of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5). The gifts are about doing; the fruit are more about being.

We are generally much better at doing than being. We make being into doing. At school, our kids are taught how to be kind like they are taught math and reading—but while socio-emotional learning is important, these things cannot be fundamentally generated or willed into being. They come only as a result of our abiding in God: as David preached yesterday, loving in times of difficulty comes when we stay connected to God. As we grow in our gifts, we must grow in our fruit; as we expand our external ministry or service, we must attend even more deeply to our inner life. Gifts without fruit—exhortation without kindness, discernment without patience, hospitality without joy, anything without love—is something to be wary of. That at least is one of the lessons these judges leave us.

Samson's Death, Christ's Death

“And Samson said, ‘Let me die with the Philistines.’ Then he bowed with all his strength, and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the people who were in it. So the dead whom he killed at his death were more than those whom he had killed during his life.” – Judges 16:30

Samson’s death was not like Christ’s in a few major ways. His death was the result of disobedience, which we see throughout his life in patterns of impulsive recklessness, sexual addiction, vindictive violence and pride. He died to redeem himself. Christ’s death was a result of his obedience, and he died to redeem us.

But there are striking similarities as well. Both were betrayed by those they loved and handed over to Gentile oppressors. Both were mocked, chained, and became weak. Both acted alone.

This latter point is an interesting one. The cycles in Judges are really more of a downward spiral: judges become more and more flawed. Repentance becomes less and less genuine or even present. The last five chapters of the book break the chronological flow of the story to go back and demonstrate just how far the Israelites had strayed from covenantal faith. But as the cycles become darker and darker, there are elements that increasingly point to Christ, like this one. Othniel rallied all of Israel (3:7-11). Deborah rallied part of Israel (5:15-18). Gideon fought with 300. Samson fought alone. As Edmund P. Clowney writes, “God had shown that He could deliver Israel with an army of willing volunteers; He had also shown that He could save with as few as three hundred… But when the Spirit of God came upon Samson, the Lord showed that He had no need for even three hundred. He could deliver by one.”

Samson killed at least over one thousand men (15:16) through his one act of death, creating a permanent rift between the Philistines and Israelites. God used Samson to bring Israel out of a place of profound and complete capitulation to Canaanite culture, paving the way to restoring their identity as people of God. Like Christ, Samson’s death opened the way to new life—despite his unprecedented flaws. And so we see that, in the midst of the darkening spiral, there is also a movement towards God, towards the Christ who dies, the Spirit who counsels, the Father who rules with justice. As the Psalmist wrote, “Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord, for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness, and the peoples in his faithfulness” (Psalm 96:13).

Sabbath Poem

By Wendell Berry:

What is the way to the woods, how do you go there?

By climbing up through the six days’ field,

kept in all the body’s years, the body’s

sorrow, weariness, and joy. By passing through

the narrow gate on the far side of that field

where the pasture grass of the body’s life gives way

to the high, original standing of the trees.

By coming into the shadow, the shadow

of the grace of the strait way’s ending,

the shadow of the mercy of light.

Why must the gate be narrow?

Because you cannot pass beyond it burdened.

To come in among these trees you must leave behind

the six days’ world, all of it, all of its plans and hopes.

You must come without weapon or tool, alone,

expecting nothing, remembering nothing,

into the ease of sight, the brotherhood [and sisterhood!] of eye and leaf.

Gideon's Ephod

“And Gideon made an ephod of it and put it in his city, in Ophrah. And all Israel whored after it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his family.” – Judges 8:27

I’m slowly reading through Watership Down with Ellie and Eric, and for a long time we were in suspense about what mysterious thing was wrong with the first warren Hazel and his friends encounter on their journey. All the rabbits there are sleek and well-fed, but there is an atmosphere of unspoken fear and secrecy. They finally discover the truth in one horror-filled moment: “What enemy was at work on the other side of the hedge? There were no cries—no spitting of a cat, no squealing of a rabbit—only the crackling of twigs and the tearing of the grass in violence. By an effort of courage against all instinct, Hazel forced himself forward into the gap, with Fiver following. A terrible sight lay before them… Bigwig was lying on his side, his back legs kicking and struggling. A length of twisted copper wire, gleaming dully in the first sunlight, was looped round his neck and ran taut across one forepaw… The projecting point of one strand had lacerated his neck and drops of blood, dark and red as yew berries, welled one by one down his shoulder. For a few moments he lay panting, his side heaving in exhaustion. Then again began the struggling and fighting, backward and forward, jerking and falling, until he choked and lay quiet.”

Snares are things that trap you unexpectedly. They appear simple, even harmless, but are purposely set for one reason: to immobilize and kill. Early on, God warns the Israelites that the Canaanite “gods shall be a snare to you” (Judges 2:3): idols, in other words, work like snares do. They insidiously trap and enslave, they ultimately control and immobilize, and their end is death. In this passage, Gideon refuses a golden crown only to turn around and make a golden ephod, melting down earrings in a way that eerily resembles how the golden calf was made (Exodus 32). The ephod was intended for glory and beauty, to bear the names of God’s people in remembrance before Him, to receive God’s guidance through the Urim and Thummim stones set upon it (Exodus 28). The actual ephod was worn at that time by the high priest in Shiloh (Judges 18:31), but by creating his own version of it, Gideon takes something that God intended to symbolize beauty, relationship, and guidance, and turns it into a snare for all the people. 

How can the vestures of our faith become idols? How can the very tools of worship become hindrances of that worship? How can we look towards our ministry to be our savior? How can the beauty of the created keep us from experiencing the beauty of the Creator? Perhaps we become ensnared by legalism; by power, visibility, or reputation in ministry; by a desire to control God on our own terms; by overemphasis on a particular style of worship; by the momentary at the cost of the eternal. The danger of these kinds of idols lies in their hiddenness, even to ourselves, cloaked as they are by the veneer of religion, by victory and rest as it was for Gideon (Judges 8:38). In the story, it took Hazel, Silver, Buckthorn, Pipkin and Fiver, working together and in turns, to dig out and bite through the peg to free Bigwig. It took seeing the copper wire for what it was to move them from a place of indolence and material comfort. May God open our eyes to the presence and workings of hidden idols in our lives.

Repentance Vs. Regret

“When the people of Israel cried out to the Lord on account of the Midianites, the Lord sent a prophet to the people of Israel. And he said to them, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I led you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of slavery.” – Judges 6:7

Judges has a cycle of rebellion, retribution, repentance, and rescue, which is repeated six times throughout the course of the book. The fact that God sends an unnamed prophet here to speak to the Israelites suggests that there is something about their cry for help that may be regret, but falls short of true repentance. What is the difference between the two? Regret, or worldly sorrow (2 Corinthians 7), is sad over the consequences of sin rather than the sin itself. Once the consequences go away, the behavior returns. Repentance is sad at how the sin grieves God and results in the loss of a relationship with him. Repentance opens the door to grace and restoration, the ability to move on past the sin. 

Regret is about ourselves; repentance is about God. The prophet’s brief sermon is entirely God-centered: he wants them to see who God is and what He has done; he wants to drive home what their disobedience means to that God, rather than just what their disobedience means to them.  

How can we discern whether we respond to sin with regret or repentance? We can go to God’s word, just as the prophet quotes God to his people. We can observe patterns of sin in our lives. As one commentator wrote, “If you are continually falling into the same spiritual pit and your falls are not decreasing in number or intensity, you may be responding to sin in regret rather than repentance. In other words, you may regret the troubles your sin causes but be unwilling to reject the idol underlying the sin, which is still attractive to you.”

We can examine our patterns of confession. It is telling that we so often find it easier to confess alone or within a congregation than to one or two other people. Dietrich Bonhoeffer puts it well:

“Why is it that it is often easier for us to confess our sins to God than to a brother? God is holy and sinless, He is a just judge of evil and the enemy of all disobedience. But a brother is sinful as we are. He knows from his own experience the dark night of secret sin. Why should we not find it easier to go to a brother than to the holy God? But if we do, we must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession of sin to God, whether we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution... Who can give us the certainty that, in the confession and the forgiveness of our sins, we are not dealing with ourselves but with the living God? God gives us this certainty through our brother. Our brother breaks the circle of self-deception. A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person.”

What We Consume

“I will ponder the way that is blameless. Oh when will you come to me? I will walk with integrity of heart within my house; I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless.” – Psalm 101:2-3

Being healthy in what we read or watch in our spare time is challenging for many reasons. It’s easy to follow cultural cues and norms. It’s easy not to be accountable for it. It’s easy after a hard day to feel entitled to whatever provides momentary pleasure or escape. Because so much of what we consume is impure, not in a moral sense (though that may be true too), but in the sense of having degrees of good and bad mixed in together, it’s easy to be led along by the good bits and be careless of the bad bits. It’s easy to be blind to how thoroughly we are affected by what we consume, in our fantasies, moods, mindsets. It’s easy to ignore the evolving nature of it all, the fact that our very appetites are changed, our prohibitions numbed, along the way. 

The word for “worthless” here is Hebrew beliya’al, which is a combination of two words. Beliy means “consumption, wearing out.” This is a movement that is not cataclysmic, but erosive, gradual, insidious. Ya’al means “to ascend on high, to rise above” or “to excel, profit, benefit.” 

We see that the focus here is not on sin at all. The focus is on ya’al and what consumes it. This is not a list of rules but a love song: “I will sing of steadfast love… to you, I Lord, I will make music.” The precedence here is not legalism but longing: “oh, when will you come to me?” The psalmist has purposely put his mind to what is blameless; he attends to every step (“I will walk”); he desires transparent integrity in the most private spheres of life (“integrity of heart within my house”). The focus here is not moral code—it’s not where the line of sin is, and getting as close to that line as possible without crossing it—the focus here is longing and love that leads to a desire for integrity and blamelessness, that leads to a vow to avoid anything that would not be of benefit towards that. It is Paul saying, all things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be dominated by anything. I am meant for the Lord, and He is meant for me (1 Corinthians 6).

This is a particular area of struggle for me: maybe because of cravings for story, or an unusually vivid imagination and memory, I have found that I need to be more careful than most about what I read or watch, and the learning of that was a long and painful process, with some regrets along the way. It wasn’t until I changed that I realized the depth of this truth that what I set before my eyes is everything. It both reveals and transforms who I am, how I think, what I desire. Jesus put it best: “The eye is the lamp of the body. So if the eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Matthew 6:22-23). May I walk with integrity of heart within my house. May I not set before my eyes anything that is worthless.

When God Is Not Obvious

“So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, but they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.’ So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight.” – Luke 24:28-29

In his book Discernment, Nouwen writes that he spends at least an hour in prayer and meditation every morning—without it, “my life loses its coherence, and I start experiencing my days as a series of random incidents and accidents rather than divine appointments and encounters.” He may not have a particularly “close feeling” with God, and often it’s not pleasant to his senses, but “the way I become aware of God’s presence is in that remarkable desire to return to that quiet place and be there without any real satisfaction. And I notice, maybe only retrospectively, that my days and weeks are different when they are held together by these regular and ‘useless’ times. God is greater than my senses, greater than my thoughts, greater than my heart. I do believe that God touches me in places that are hidden even to myself.”

Jesus remains hidden during most of his encounter with two disciples on the road to Emmaus. And that’s part of what makes this story so poignant, isn’t it? He looks at these disciples as they “stood still, looking sad.” He listens to their experience. And rather than immediately revealing himself in person, which would have made both logical and emotional sense, he takes them through the Scriptures so that they can see him there instead. It was only in retrospect that they saw the significance of that time: “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” 

It’s easy to have a consumeristic view of our daily times with God. It’s hard to keep reading the Bible or praying if we feel like we aren’t “getting anything out of it” or seeing results. But often, the effects of those times are only appreciated in hindsight. Often, God works in ways and areas within us that are hidden even to our own eyes. I don’t know why Jesus did not say to those two disciples, “it is I!” as he did to Mary. Instead, he walked them through the Word. He waited for their invitation. He took, blessed, broke, and gave the bread—the holy, in the mundane. Jesus takes an ordinary meal, that as his followers these disciples must have done with him many times in the past without anything at all remarkable happening, and reveals himself both during and through it. And then, he vanishes. Leaving them with the remains of dinner, perhaps. The dishes to do.

Sometimes, I have Mary-moments. More often, I have Emmaus-experiences: going along the road through the Word, carrying my confusion or sadness or weariness, wondering where Jesus went, moments of recognition mingled with periods of remembering. But he is no less working, whether I have a sense of it or not. He is no less present, whether I feel it or not. He is greater than my senses, and the decision I make to spend time with him matters.

Obedience In The Unseen

“And she said, ‘I will surely go with you. Nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.’” – Judges 4:9

“As we live our ordinary lives we are declaring all the time exactly what we are.” – Martyn Lloyd-Jones

At this time of transition from the bronze to the iron age, Sisera’s 900 iron chariots represented a huge technological advantage. In human terms, Barak was leading his 10,000 men into certain slaughter, but they stream down Mount Tabor anyway under Deborah’s command. We learn later in song (Judges 5:21) that God flooded the valley, creating mud that clogged the chariots’ wheels and giving the Israelites victory. 

Barak points to Christ, who like him is under authority (John 8:28), does not act apart from the one who sent him (John 5:19), and is victorious through obedience (Romans 5:19, Philippians 2:8; Hebrews 5:8). In all this, he demonstrates courage, humility, and a faith for which he is remembered in Hebrews 11. But most of all, he does it all unseen. He goes on a mission instigated by a woman and finished by a woman, knowing he will get little credit for it.

Sometimes it feels like my hardest battles are the ones I fight unseen, the hidden battles of ordinary life. Battles to control what I say or don’t say. Battles to not indulge in self-pity, complaint, judgment, or gossip. Battles to give up what I know God is calling me to turn away from. Battles to forgive someone, again. Battles to discipline well when I’m tired. Battles over my thoughts in the dark before sleep. I fight these battles against my own sinful nature, against the schemes of Satan, and for the most part there is no element of public recognition. The struggles are real, hard, and sometimes long; the victories when they happen can be unmistakable experiences of God’s power. But no one really sees them.

Barak had no less courage though he knew there would be no fame, and neither should I. Because the reality is, of course, that I am seen. Deborah’s words echo Jesus’: I will be with you. Mount Tabor is thought to be the place of Jesus’ transfiguration so many years later, the place where God declares his love to his Son as he does to us. The Holy Spirit lives inside me. I am not alone, in these most important battles in my life.

Left-Handed Salvation

“The Lord raised up for them a deliverer, Ehud, the song of Gera, the Benjamite, a left-handed man.” – Judges 3:15

After Othniel, none of the judges named in this book seem like who you’d expect to be a leader. Deborah is a woman, Gideon the least in a house of the weakest clan, and Ehud is left-handed. At that time, the right hand was a symbol of power and ability: God swears by his right hand, has pleasures at his right hand, and the Chosen One sits at his right hand (Isaiah 62:8-9; Psalm 16:11, 110:1). In Hebrew, Judges 3:15 literally says Ehud was “unable to use his right hand,” leading some scholars to speculate that he had some kind of paralysis or disability. No one would expect a left-handed man to be dangerous. They would assume that if he could not wield a weapon with his right hand, he couldn’t wield one at all—and that is why he was admitted to the king’s presence both publicly and privately. No one thought he could be a threat; he was completely beneath their notice.

Paul tells us in the first chapter of 1 Corinthians that God does not choose the worldly-wise or powerful. He does not choose those of privileged birth. God chooses the foolish, the weak, the low and despised. Why is this? 

The temptation for the Israelites at that time was not outright rejection of God so much as adding him to a pantheon of gods. The prevailing polytheistic culture objected not to the existence of God, but to his absolute sovereignty. When it came to various Canaanite gods, you generally did something to please a certain god so that they would give you something in response. But God is making it clear that he does not work as idols do. He chooses the unexpected, and works through them in strikingly different but undeniably powerful ways, to show that he is not a vending machine or formula. He is not one of many. He cannot be manipulated. And what he wants is not merely our tribute but our hearts, our total surrender to him alone. 

David Jackman writes: “Let us remember that Israel’s flirtation with other gods came from their over-domestication of the living Lord. It was because they thought they had God sewn up, in their pockets… [His] unbreakable promises led them to presume upon his mercy to the point of indulgence… they thought they had trained God. That is always the essence of idolatry… [Then] God teaches his rebellious people their total dependence on omnipotence by breaking out of their predictable boxes to use methods and men that no one could have imagined."

Jesus came like the left-handed Ehud: “he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him… we esteemed him not” (Isaiah 53:2-3). He was beneath our notice. And through him God shows us that salvation comes left-handed. Not in the way we would think or the world would laud, but in a way that shows us he is a God like no other.