Bryan Richardson

Turn

Re:Verse passage – Judges 2:11-20, 3:5-11 (day three)

“The Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who oppressed and afflicted them.”

Here is the cycle in Judges: spiritual and moral ruination, military occupation, spiritual awakening, military and societal revolution, then peace, followed again by further spiritual and moral ruination, military occupation, spiritual awakening, military and societal revolution, then peace, followed again by spiritual and moral ruination, and so on. The seemingly incessant pattern elicits much tut-tutting in church congregations and Bible study groups. “They never learned,” you might hear it said. “We can be exactly the same way today,” people sometimes remark. Both sentiments are certainly valid. But is there anything in that cycle that invites something besides disparaging comments? Yes. At each spiritual awakening, “God was moved to pity.” This is God. When you turn, he is moved. This is hope. This is life.

Pattern

Re:Verse passage – Judges 1:1-2, 8-13, 20 (day three)

“Now it came about after the death of Joshua…”

The first line of Judges plunges us into the story of an age in Israel’s history that would last four hundred years or so by some accounts. It’s chaotic, tumultuous, gruesome, offensive, and full of heroes that do horrible things. In other words, it’s a society we can recognize if we’ll drop the pretense of politeness. It wasn’t the society they needed, but it was the society they deserved. There was mercy for the asking. But the cyclical social patterns took their toll. In the course of time, Christ provided a way out of that cycle. Its allure still beckons, though. We would do well to read Judges as if it’s our own diary.

Potential

Re:Verse passage – 2 Chronicles 9:13-31 (day three)

“So King Solomon became greater than all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom.”

It might be easy to dismiss Solomon’s wealth and understanding, to waive it away with the pronouncement that none of it mattered if his heart wasn’t right (which it eventually wasn’t). But Solomon was the king. One word from him could save a life or condemn it. It’s precisely because of his power that his riches and his insight were so critically important. Wealth and wisdom well-stewarded afford the kinds of initiatives that form character and build infrastructure and institutions for the common good. Wealth and wisdom ill-stewarded do not, and the greater the wealth and wisdom, the greater the agonizing sense of tragedy when what could have been never happens. Solomon could have built a kingdom that represented heaven’s kind of life. What a waste.

Fall

Re:Verse passage – 2 Chronicles 9:1-12 (day three)

“And Solomon told her all her questions: and there was nothing hid from Solomon which he told her not.”

How can someone fall from wisdom? The question arises in the first place because it’s easy to think of wisdom as a failsafe. Surely wisdom will warn a person when she or he is falling. But no such failsafe exists. Neither wisdom, nor intelligence, nor confidence, nor skill, nor knowledge – none will do the heavy lifting of living a life of good. For that, the will must act. It cannot outsource its responsibility to deliberate and to choose. It all comes down, again, to the will’s need to be transformed by Christ. “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Turn

Re:Verse passage – 2 Chronicles 7:11-22 (day three)

“…therefore he has brought all this adversity on them.”

There is adversity that arises no matter how we live. But there is also adversity that comes when we will do what we know to be unrighteous. The statutes of God give us a window into the life of heaven – ordering ourselves to God’s authority, looking after one another’s good, keeping our word to those around us, caring for our families, ceasing our labor, cultivating generosity, acknowledging the sacredness of human life. When we depart from these things, we will bring about – in ourselves and in others – heartache, misery, regret, abandonment, pain. It takes time, but we begin to heal the wounds in ourselves and others when we come back to the statutes from which we strayed. With God, there is a way back home.

Care

Re:Verse passage – 2 Chronicles 7:1-10 (day three)

“…rejoicing and happy of heart because of the goodness that the Lord had shown to David and to Solomon and to His people Israel.”

When you know someone is caring for you, you are free from worry. This effect is on display here with the people having seen evidence of God’s care. This was Jesus’s point in directing people’s attention to the way God cares for the flowers and the birds. What better way to help people find release from worry than to stand with them in thoughtful caring, as though you were embodying Christ’s care for them?

Life

Re:Verse passage – 2 Chronicles 6:12-42 (day three)

“Hear from your dwelling place, from heaven; hear and forgive.”

A person dies without fellowship – that physical and emotional welcoming of the whole person into the presence of others. From a baby’s need for nurturing touch and mother’s voice to an old man’s need for the grip of a friend’s hand and the sound of a neighbor’s greeting, people’s bodies and spirits need fellowship with one another. We will die – body and spirit – without it. Forgiveness – deciding not to punish a person when that person has sinned against you – is a necessary foundation of fellowship. To live in each other’s presence requires that nothing prevent intimacy between you and the other. We learn forgiveness from God. When he forgives, he is breathing life into us. When we forgive, we do the same. No wonder he commands us to forgive one another.

Power

Re:Verse passage – 2 Chronicles 6:1-11 (day three)

“The king faced about and blessed all the assembly of Israel.”

Will a person who holds power in a society work for the good of all the people in that society? That’s always the hope, isn’t it? What often ends up happening, though, is that the powerful people in a society support the one who will keep them powerful, and that person then works for the good of only some rather than all. Throughout history, the Lord has raised up people to speak truth to power. But for now, here’s power speaking truth to the people. Speaking the truth involves more than the right words; it’s also righteous actions for the good of all people. For a shining moment, it actually happened. Then Solomon abandoned the truth. He used his power to weaken and destabilize an entire nation. Leaders matter.

Living

Re:Verse passage – 2 Chronicles 5:1-14 (day three)

“There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets which Moses put there at Horeb.”

There was nothing in the ark but the word of God delivered to human beings. There was nothing in the ark except a description of the good life recorded in language people could understand. There was nothing in the ark save the revelation of the only kind of life that will last eternally. The point is that the physical, geographic point in the temple where God would dwell with human beings contained the only thing it needed to contain: God’s guidance to a life that lasts through all uncertainty, all adversity, all hostility. God would meet there with the high priest and tell him, “Remind the people, train the people, love the people with these words. They will live when they learn this way of life.”

Material

Re:Verse passage – 2 Chronicles 3:1-17 (day three)

“These are the foundations which Solomon laid for building the house of God.”

There is something in us that insists that what is material is of lesser worth than that which is spiritual. This is not true at all. The physical realm – matter, energy, space – is contingent upon the spiritual realm. That is, the spiritual realm – ultimately God himself – undergirds and upholds the physical realm. What is material depends on the spiritual for its existence. But there is a difference between dependent and worthless. God worked with Solomon to build the temple because God is very interested in living with human beings in this material realm. In the age to come, heaven and earth will merge to become one. Then we will know by sight that God loves this whole glorious place that he made.