Judges, James, and repeat readings...

Judges

I just wrapped up Judges (and with this plan, you read Ruth in the middle of Judges) so tomorrow morning I get to start 1 Samuel.  

I LOVE Samuel.  He is one of my favorite, favorite people in the Bible.  

Does anyone else have a hard time reading Judges though?  Like how could Israel fall so fast, so far and how can so many awful things have happened?  

My favorite story in Judges is the story of Gideon.  I LOVE the beginning of his story, but he misses the WHOLE point when his heart is ensnared to worship the golden ephod.  And then his son's stories?  And then Micah and the priest?  And the priest and the concubine?  You think, ok surely they will turn back, surely they will repent.  And the next chapter brought more bad news - more corruption, more distance from God.  And then the final chapters of Judges when the tribe of Benjamin is all but wiped out.  It is so sad and hard to read.

But the most telling verses in this book are :

In chapter two, we begin to glimpse the cyclical nature of Israel's sin and their hardened hearts.  It said that God raised up judges to save them out of the hands of the raiders.  But they would not listen to the judges and continued their race away from God in pursuit of counterfeit idols. Then they would get so miserable in captivity or under persecution that they would come to their senses - they would cry out to God to save them.  He would send them a protector/leader and they would serve God for the length of the judge's life - only to once again lapse into their sin as soon as that leader died.  (Judges 2:16:19)

Rinse and repeat.  (the entire book of Judges unfolds this story)

But to me, the most jarring statement in Judges comes with the very last verse - Judges 21:25 "In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit."  This is EXACTLY what God (repeatedly) warned them not to do.  (see Deuteronomy 12:1-7, especially verse 8)

Why do we, as humans, do this?  Why do we run hard and fast away from God?  

James

This summer we are going to read and re-read the book of James.  I make notecards - verse by verse - from four different translations to help us study them.  While you can use an app like Bible Hub to do this, or pull out Bibles from your shelves, we find it easier to break down the selections one card at a time.  We write the verse on the front and note the translation (we chose NIV, NLT, NASB, and AMP), on the back we write any notes - definitions, cross references, questions etc;.

Originally I wanted to do the book of Ephesians, but as our hard year has continued to unfold, I think we need James more in this season, the instructions on how to be humble, trust God, and draw near to Him.  

Re-reading

I continued my re-reading bonanza and re-read The Unseen Guest (book 3 of Incorrigible Children) by Maryrose Wood only to realize that years ago when we read/listened to this series, our girls were very young and we never actually finished book three, nor continued on with the series.  (the author was still writing them when we began the series).  SO, that was my only actual re-read this week (unless I get Harry Potter book 2 read, then I will edit this to include it)

I read The Interrupted Tale (book 4 of Incorrigible Children) by Maryrose Wood.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE how the mystery unfolds.  And I highly recommend re-reading these (for yourself!) even if you read them aloud to your children when they were young.