Days of Yore: Books

To quote the grandfather in The Princess Bride, "When I was your age, television was called books."

When I was little, I loved reading books. I read every chance I got. In particular, I loved adventure books (still do) and mysteries. I read The Chronicles of Narnia multiple times. I read most of The Three Investigators books (3 series of them...one set when the main characters are in their preteens and early teens, the second series in a "Choose Your Own Adventure" format in between, and then a third series when they're in their later teens). The Chronicles of Prydain come to mind. As an adult, the Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Heroes of Olympus and Kane Chronicles books joined the honored list, along with the Ranger's Apprentice books and sequel series. There were many other books that I loved to read, but those book franchises are what come to mind offhand. In fact, I loved reading so much as a kid that often when I got in trouble, my parents would ground me from reading for a few hours.

William Shakespeare's Star Wars Saga
by the great bard Ian Doescher
with bookends inspired by
the great bard JRR Tolkien

On long road trips growing up, my mom would read us books. At one point, someone sent us the audiobook of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe on cassette, and that was a new experience for me. I was expecting a somewhat dramatized reading of it with a full cast, and was surprised to hear one person reading the whole book, though he did a fantastic job.

They also had a genre called Choose Your Own Adventure that was popular for a while. Every time a character had to make a decision or there was some other "crossroads" in the story, it said something along the lines of "If you want this to happen, go to page 75. If you want that to happen, go to page 95." It made for interesting variations in the story. If I didn't like the way a story turned out, I generally went back until I found a path that turned out better. Come to think of it, it was a bit like a literary maze. Hmm, I never thought of it that way. (Insert lightbulb emoji here...I tried it and the emoji looked more like a tennis racket, so I'll leave that to your imagination.) 😀

At church when we sang hymns, we pulled out the hymnals in the back of the pews and turned to the song in question. It had basic sheet music for the hymns (there's one in the middle of the picture above, with a gray cover). In the 90s, we used a mixture of hymnals and songs with the lyrics on the overhead projector. Now we use PowerPoint. The hymnals are still in the back of the pews, but only rarely used.

In past years, it was common for families to have family Bibles, which were large and heavy, and had places to record birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, and more. We also had smaller Bibles we could carry with us. We often marked them up. They sometimes said that a mark of a healthy Christian is a worn-out Bible. Now I have a Bible app on my phone, which offers hundreds of versions and languages, as well as commentary, a Bible verse meme maker, and more. Easier to carry, and it offers more options, but you can't mark it up in the same way. You can also have virtual Bible studies with friends on the app.

Technically, the internet existed before I was born, but it didn't really become popular and public until I was a teenager in the early '90s. Until high school, research was done entirely by physical means. The closest I got to online research was using microfiche in the library to look up old news reports. They had the glossy black microfiche scans that we fed into the machine and read on the screen. (The print on the cards was tiny and too small to read without the help of the machine.) We had computer classes, but we saved our work on the individual computers and on floppy disks. If we wanted to work on it using a different computer, we had to insert the floppy and pull it up that way.

When we had to look up a word, we pulled out our dictionary. There were also special dictionaries for translating in other languages. If we needed synonyms, we would pull out the trusty thesaurus (which was a little more complicated to navigate than your average dictionary). Researching more complicated things, such as history, other cultures, and many other things, involved pulling out the encyclopedia (notably World Book and Encyclopedia Britannica). When we were younger, we also looked things up in the Childcraft encyclopedias for children. We could also look things up in newspapers and magazines, as well as autobiographies and other physical books. In school, I did many book reports, as well as reports on cultures such as Bolivia, Chad and Newfoundland. (I know there were others, but those are the ones that come to mind.)

When I was younger, some people generously gave me subscriptions to magazines like Ranger Rick and Clubhouse. I loved reading the Highlights magazine. When we got our Stars and Stripes newspaper in the Philippines, I would go straight to the comics section. I loved reading the comics, particularly Peanuts, Garfield, The Phantom, Prince Valiant, Cathy, BC, Family Circus, For Better or for Worse, Blondie, Dick Tracy, Calvin and Hobbes, multiple superhero comics, and others. Though I didn't see it in the newspaper when it was syndicated, I'm also a big fan of the Kim & Jason comic strip (though I might be a bit biased because the author is a dear friend...I've mentioned Jason on my blog before). I borrowed the Asterix and Tintin comic books from friends and read them voraciously. The Adventures of Tintin is still one of my favorite comic strips, and I now have the full collection.

When Amazon introduced the Kindle, I downloaded it on my cell phone and read books that way. The Kindle format all but eclipsed the physical books for me. It's much easier to carry a phone in my pocket with an entire library in it, than sometimes big and heavy books.

In more recent years, as I've gotten more busy with work and other things, I've done a lot of my reading with audiobooks. I find it helps to listen to them while I'm working (depending on what I'm doing), as it helps to focus my mind to keep it from wandering thanks to ADHD (which I wish I had known as a child that I had). On the other hand, some tasks require listening to music instead, as it can be distracting at times. I know, I'm sure everyone is shocked that yet another "Days of Yore" post ends with me pointing out that I do most of this on my cell phone now (although some of my audiobook listening is done on a computer).

Biblical Precautions: Saul

Dark of night. The basket lowered slowly down the wall as its occupant silently crouched, not making a sound. He was a marked man.

Saul was in a tough situation. He had been on his way to Damascus on a mission to arrest the followers of the recently-crucified Jesus, and following the subsequent public execution of Stephen. As a devoted Pharisee, he was notorious for his ongoing efforts to persecute and martyr the followers of Christ. He was determined to arrest them and bring them to Jerusalem for prosecution and execution. But all that changed on the road in a blinding flash of light when Jesus spoke to him and turned his life around. Instead of arresting followers of The Way (as it was called at the time), he was led into Damascus, blind, having been told to await further instructions at the house of Judas on Straight Street.

The basket creaked as it lowered further. He recalled more about this strange adventure.

Three days had passed since his arrival in Damascus. He had been blind and had not eaten anything, opting instead to fast and pray. He heard a man approaching and felt hands on his shoulders. "Brother Saul," said a voice, "the Lord - Jesus, who you saw on the road to Damascus - has sent me to you so that you can see and be filled with the Holy Spirit." Something like scales fell off his eyes and he looked into the face of Ananias, a follower of Christ who had been sent to him for this purpose. He got up and was baptized, and then he got some food.

As the days passed, the Jews and the followers of The Way were thunderstruck to find a man they knew had come to arrest them, instead boldly proclaiming in the city streets and proving that Jesus was the promised Messiah. This was the polar opposite of the mission he had so recently been pursuing and enforcing. As news got out, the Jews in Damascus smelled a turncoat and started watching the city gate day and night to make sure he couldn't leave before they could arrest and kill him. But Saul got wind of the plot, and he and his new friends came up with a plan. There was a hole in the city wall. They took a large basket and he got in it. They let it out through the hole and slowly lowered him in it with ropes.

The basket reached the ground. Stealthily, he moved away from the wall, avoiding the city gates, and returned to Jerusalem. 

Saul's life was saved due to precautions that he had to take. He would encounter similar shock from the followers of The Way in Jerusalem, but Barnabas would stick up for him. He would debate with the Hellenistic Jews, who also tried to kill him. The followers of The Way in Jerusalem took him to Antioch, and from there sent him on to his hometown of Tarsus. Barnabas would later go to Tarsus to find Saul. They would then spend a year ministering in Antioch, and Saul, also known as Paul, would go on to travel around the Mediterranean area spreading the Gospel.

Paul's life was saved because he took precautions. God protected him, but he also had to take action. Without those precautions, we would not have a large portion of the New Testament, and the beginnings of the Christian Church would have been very different.

We need to have faith. Faith allows us to boldly proclaim the Good News. Faith in God's love and protection has been a major factor down through the years in propelling the growth of the Church. But precautions are also necessary.

How many lives would be saved today for lifesaving work in the future if we would just take precautions during this pandemic? Compared to the precautions Paul had to take, we are being asked so little. Just a mask and a poke. If Paul had boldly left Damascus through the gate, he would have become a martyr before the bulk of his ministry even began. Similarly, we must eschew the idea that wearing masks and getting the vaccine shows a lack of faith. We have a mission to save lives, and we must not just assume God will miraculously protect us from our own folly. He can easily do so, but that is not how He operates every time.

Saint Paul, painting by Rembrandt, c. 1657

The Centurion's Faith

This morning's Sunday school lesson, from Luke 7...


A lot had happened in Israel since the days of the Kings in the Old Testament. Israel and Judah were both taken into captivity, and Judah was eventually allowed to return to their land. But it was never the same. By the time Jesus was born, Judea was a province of the Empire of Rome. The emperor Caesar ruled Rome, and he appointed governors to the provinces. The Roman army had generals called centurions. They were called that because they each commanded centuries of 100 soldiers. (In this case, a century is a group of soldiers, not a group of years.)

Le Centurion (The Centurion),

By French painter Jacques Tissot

Painted between 1886 and 1894

Brooklyn Museum

After Jesus was rejected in Nazareth, He traveled around the area, teaching and healing. During this time, He picked twelve men to teach and become His disciples: Simon Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot.

Peter lived in Capernaum, and Jesus liked to hang out there a lot. Most of the people in Capernaum were Jews, but there were also people from other cultures who lived there, such as an important Roman centurion. Roman soldiers weren’t very nice to the Jews, and they made them pay taxes. In fact, John the Baptist had to tell the soldiers not to take more in taxes than they were required to take. The Jews hated most centurions, but this one was different. He actually cared for the people in the town, and he even built a synagogue for them! That’s pretty amazing since he probably worshipped Jupiter and the rest of the Roman gods at first. He was also unusual because he cared for his servants. He had a very important servant who was very sick, so sick in fact that he was getting close to dying. The centurion heard that Jesus had come to town, and he sent some Jewish elders to Jesus to ask Him to come quickly to help his servant.  When they found Jesus, they didn’t just ask Him to come…they begged Him! They told Him about how this guy had done so much for them, and he really cared. This was not just any Roman centurion.

Jesus followed them, but before He got to the house, the centurion sent some messengers to say, “Don’t bother coming. I sent others because I wasn’t worthy to come to You myself, and I’m not worthy for You to come to my house. But I know that You are very powerful. You can just say the word, and poof! My servant will be well. I am under authority myself, and I have authority over my soldiers and servants. I tell them ‘Come!’ or ‘Go!’ or ‘Do this!’, and they obey me.” The centurion understood that Jesus had authority that he didn’t have. No matter how much he ordered his servant to get better, it would be impossible. But Jesus had authority over the sickness, and He could command it to leave.

When the messengers passed on the word, Jesus stopped. He was amazed. This guy wasn’t even a Jew! He said, “Wow! I haven’t seen this much faith in all of Israel!”

When the messengers got back to the centurion’s house, they discovered that the servant, who had almost died, was well!

Jesus' Baptism

Today's Sunday school lesson, from Luke 1-3 (with bits of Matthew thrown in)...


The big day came! Mary and Joseph had gone on a difficult journey with a donkey and their supplies to Bethlehem for a census, only to find no place available to stay. So they found a stable, and their bouncing baby was born. It was a big deal. On a tip from some angels, a group of shepherds visited them. Pretty soon, people started leaving after the census, and Mary and Joseph were able to find a house to raise their new son Jesus. A couple years later, some rich wise men came and brought expensive gifts. But on their way, they stopped by the palace in Jerusalem and talked to King Herod. Herod wasn’t too happy about this new King of the Jews, and he secretly plotted to kill Jesus. But an angel warned Joseph about it in a dream, and the family got up and fled to Africa. Maybe you know the country in Africa where they went? It’s called Egypt. They lived in Egypt until Herod died and it was safe to go back home. So after returning from Egypt, Jesus grew up in Joseph’s hometown of Nazareth. Many years passed, and Jesus turned 30.

Back up a little more than 30 years.

Mary was pregnant and scared. She went to her cousin Elizabeth’s house for a while because she heard that Elizabeth, who was too old to have children, was also pregnant. An angel had appeared to her husband Zechariah and told him they would have a son, and they should name him John. Zechariah didn’t believe the angel at first, so God made him unable to speak, until one day when his neighbors were having a discussion about John’s name, and he wrote on a tablet, “His name is John.” Zechariah prophesied that John would be a prophet, and that he would prepare the way for the promised Messiah that Israel had been awaiting for centuries.

The big day came! Elizabeth gave birth to a son, and they named him John. He was born a few months before Jesus, and when John grew up, he lived in the desert. There wasn’t much to eat there, except maybe some delicious locusts and honey. Yum!!

John became a preacher and prophet, just like his dad had prophesied. He often preached and baptized by the Jordan River, and he had an interesting message. He called the people snakes! He told them they needed to change how they acted. They needed to ask God to forgive their sins. They should share their food and their clothes. Tax collectors should only collect as much in taxes as they were required to collect. Soldiers shouldn’t ask for bribes or accuse people falsely. “Oh, and there’s this guy coming. I’m baptizing you with water, but He’ll baptize you with fire and the Holy Spirit.* I’m not even worthy to untie his sandals,” something that slaves normally did. Pretty soon, 30-year-old Jesus came to His cousin John to be baptized. John was a little reluctant at first since he thought Jesus should be the one baptizing him, but Jesus convinced him to do it.

When Jesus came out of the water, something amazing happened. Heaven opened, and the Holy Spirit came down in the form of a dove! A loud voice from heaven boomed, “You are My Son. I love You, and I’m so proud of You!”

Jordan River, near a location where people are often baptized. 

I did not show this picture in class, but it shows a place 

where it's likely this happened.

So that was how Jesus began His ministry. He got baptized by His cousin John, and He showed publicly that He was different from anyone else.

I showed this picture of a shamrock before the lesson, as 

St. Patrick's explanation of the Trinity is the best I've heard.

We serve one God, who has three parts. That's confusing,

even for adults. As St. Patrick explained it, a shamrock

has three leaves, but it is still one shamrock. That's similar

to how the Trinity is three parts: the Father, the Son and the 

Holy Spirit, but only one God. All three parts showed up at 

Jesus' baptism.

* The prophecy about Jesus baptizing them with the Holy Spirit and fire came true 3 years later in the book of Acts.

All pictures are in the public domain, and I got them from Wikimedia Commons.

Samson

This week's Sunday school lesson, from Judges 13-16...

God used Gideon to end the Israelites’ worship of Baal, and then to defeat the Midianite army in a very strange way. How often do you hear of an army killing each other after hearing smashing pots, trumpets and shouting? After the victory, Gideon went on to judge Israel for forty years, and they had peace. After he died, his son Abimelech took his place. Then came Tola. Then Jair. Jephthah. Ibzan. Elon. Abdon. Throughout this time, the Israelites kept forgetting God and calling out to Him when they got in trouble. Whenever they called out, God sent them a deliverer. Jephthah in particular won an important victory with God’s help, but he learned too late that it isn’t a good idea to make promises to God without thinking about what might happen when you have to keep them. But that’s another story.

After Judge Abdon’s death, the Israelites turned away from God again, and so He let them be oppressed by the Philistines for 40 years!

During that time, there was a man named Manoah, who wanted a child, but his wife couldn’t have children. One day, an angel appeared to Manoah and his wife and gave them some great news. They were going to have a son! But there was a catch. The boy would be a Nazirite. That meant he would be set apart for God. He wouldn’t be allowed to have a haircut, touch a dead body, or drink alcohol.

So, true to the angel’s word, the couple had a baby boy, and they named him Samson. As he grew, his hair got very long, and God gave him amazing strength. This guy was a rough, tough, macho man, and he tore a lion apart with his bare hands! Later, he found the lion’s dead body and discovered a beehive in it. There was honey, and it looked delicious, so he took some…but in the process, he touched the lion’s body even though God had told him not to touch dead bodies.

Samson fell in love with a Philistine woman. He wanted to marry her, even though God had commanded the Israelites long ago not to marry Philistines or anyone else from the lands they had conquered. At the wedding, he came up with a riddle and offered a big reward for anyone who could answer it:

“Out of the eater, something to eat;

Out of the strong, something sweet.”

When the Philistines couldn’t figure out the answer, they convinced his bride to coax the answer out of him. So she betrayed him, and everyone was mad, and not everyone survived. In fact, her father was so mad at his son-in-law that he gave his daughter to someone else. When Samson found out that his father-in-law had taken away his wife, he got really steamed. So he rounded up 300 foxes and tied their tails together in pairs. He tied a burning torch to each pair of tails and let them run wild in the Philistines’ fields. (Think about it. Foxes are wild, and it’s tough to catch one, let alone 300!) The Philistines were very upset about Samson burning their crops, and they got really mad. The Israelites got scared and took Samson to the Philistines so they could take out their anger on him. But as he got close to the Philistines, God’s strength came on Samson. He took a donkey’s jawbone and used it to defeat 1000 strong men! So he became Israel’s judge and led them for 20 years.

Sometime later, Samson went to Gaza, where he ripped off the doors of the city gate and carried them to the top of a nearby hill. They were heavy! The Philistines could tell he was very strong. About this time, he fell in love with a woman named Delilah, and the Philistines asked her to find out Samson’s secret to being so strong. She tried several times, but he kept coming up with lies about it:

“Tie me up with seven bowstrings, and I’ll get weak.” But when they tried that, he easily snapped the bowstrings off.

After he suggested they tie him up with new ropes, he snapped them like twigs. Maybe if they weave his long hair into fabric? Nope. He broke the loom and pulled the hair fabric apart. Day after day, Delilah nagged and prodded Samson, and she started to wear him down. So he said, “OK, fine. I’ve never had a haircut. Try cutting my hair.” Nothing else had worked, and Samson didn’t think this would work either. But he didn’t know that this was the final straw for God. God had given Samson so many chances, and he had disobeyed so many times, that God had had enough. Samson had the surprise of his life in the morning when the Philistines came in and tied him up, and he wasn’t strong enough to fight back! They poked out his eyes and threw him in prison, where they made him grind grain.

But while he was in prison, his hair started to grow back. One day, the Philistines had a big celebration to honor their false god Dagon. They liked to humiliate prisoners at their parties, and Samson seemed like a really fun idea for entertainment. The blind strongman performed for the Philistines, and they loved it. But then, he asked the servant who was leading him around to place him between the two main pillars of the crowded Philistine temple. Samson knew that he had done some terrible things, but he also knew that God had sent him to deliver Israel from the evil Philistines. So he prayed that God would give him superhuman strength once more. He no longer cared for his own life. Samson stood between the two pillars and put a hand on each one. With all his might, he pushed outward, and he brought the house down. Literally. That day, more Philistines died from the building falling on them than he had killed in his lifetime. Samson himself didn’t live to tell the tale.

Gideon

Sunday school lesson from this morning, from Judges 6-7...


God had brought the Israelites through a lot. General Sisera did horrible things to the Israelites, and God sent Barak to defeat him. When Barak got scared, Judge Deborah went with him into battle, and with God’s help, they defeated Sisera’s army. But because Barak didn’t trust God enough, Sisera himself was defeated by a woman named Jael.

After that, there was peace for 40 years.

But then, as Israelites did often, they forgot God again. They did evil things, and God allowed the Midianites to do bad things to them. As soon as the Israelites’ crops were ready to harvest, the Midianites and Amalekites swooped in and stole it all. They stole their crops, livestock, and anything they could find to eat. This kept happening for seven years! Finally, the Israelites were so poor and starving that they cried out to God for help. So God sent them a prophet to remind them that He had brought them out of Egypt and provided for them, but they had decided to worship other gods.

Because the Israelites needed to eat, they had to get creative about where they put their food, to hide it from the invaders. One day, God sent an angel to the farm of a guy named Joash. The Midianites would expect to find lots of wheat to eat on the threshing floor where they separated the good wheat from the chaff, the skin of the wheat that wasn’t good to eat. So Joash’s son Gideon was threshing wheat in their winepress. The angel sat under a nearby oak tree and said to him, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”

Gideon was pretty surprised. He said, “But sir, if that’s true, what happened to all the miracles? I’ve heard all kinds of great things He did for our ancestors when He brought them out of Egypt, but He seems to have abandoned us lately.”

“Go, save Israel from Midian,” said the angel. “I am sending you.”

Gideon wasn’t satisfied. “But, but…how do I do that? My family is the weakest in the tribe of Menasseh, and I’m the weakest in my family! Why call a wimp?”

But the angel said, “Go. I will be with you, and you will defeat the Midianites.”

“OK,” said Gideon, “I need a sign. I’ll go get an offering. Be right back.” He went in and cooked a goat and made some bread, and then brought it out to the angel. He put it on a rock, and the angel touched it. Fire came out of the rock and burned it up! Then the angel disappeared. So Gideon knew it really was an angel that God had sent. He was scared.

Then God told him to do something really scary. God told him to tear down the idols of the false god Baal, then sacrifice his father’s bull on a proper altar, using the idols as wood to burn it.

Gideon obeyed, but he was too scared to do it during the day, so he took ten of his servants, and they did it at night when everyone was asleep. When the neighbors got up the next day, they discovered their idols had been destroyed, and they were furious. They marched over to Joash’s house and demanded to have Gideon so they could kill him! Joash replied, “If Baal is such a powerful god, don’t you think he can deal out his own wrath? He shouldn’t need help killing someone who destroyed his altars.” So they called Gideon Jerub-Baal, which means “Let Baal contend.”

The Midianites were coming! Gideon was learning, and with God’s help, he started building an army to fight them. But he was still scared. He asked God for a sign again. “If You really want me to do this, show me. I’m putting a wool fleece on the threshing floor, and if the fleece is wet with dew and the ground is dry in the morning, I’ll know.” So God did it! Then he said, “OK, don’t be angry, but I need to double check. This time, I’d like you to make the fleece dry and the ground wet with dew.” God did that. So Gideon had no doubt this was what God wanted him to do.

He set out leading his army, but God had another surprise for him. There were too many people for God to show them that this was His plan! So God had Gideon tell everyone who was too scared to go home. 22,000 soldiers left, leaving only 10,000. But that was still too many! So God gave them a really strange test. 10,000 soldiers went down to the river to get a drink. 300 men lapped the water with their hands to their mouths, while everyone else knelt down to drink. The people who knelt down ended up having to go home. So that meant the army only had 300 people left!

God told Gideon to sneak into the Midianite camp during the night. When he did, he overheard two Midianites talking. One of them had just had a dream that a barley loaf had fallen into the Midianite camp and hit the tent so hard that it collapsed! The second person said, “That means that God has given our camp into the hands of Gideon son of Joash!”

Worshiping God, Gideon snuck back up to his camp and laid out his plan. It was the middle of the night at this point. He split the small army into three groups and gave each of them trumpets and empty jars. The three groups surrounded the camp, and at a cue from Gideon, they blew 300 trumpets and smashed 300 clay jars! 300 voices shouted, “A SWORD FOR THE LORD AND FOR GIDEON!” The Midianite army awoke with a start and panicked. They were so scared that they grabbed their swords and started to fight…but in their fear and confusion, they forgot that they were killing each other! The survivors fled, and the Israelites chased them. Gideon called for more men in the area, and the men of the tribe of Ephraim answered. The Israelites defeated Midian that day, but there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that it was God who had won the battle.

---

The following pictures are of a threshing floor and the process of threshing, or separating the grain from the stalks and chaff. I printed them to show the class. Click on them to see them larger.

Source: Fletcher, Elizabeth. "Bible Archaeology: The First Farmers: Food in the Ancient World." Bible Archaeology. Web. 17 Feb 2013. http://www.bible-archaeology.info/agriculture.htm

A stone threshing floor surrounded by a low stone wall to contain the grain

Threshing: woman with grain on a threshing floor, Israel, 19th century photograph

Deborah and Barak

Sunday school lesson from February 10, from Judges 4-5...

Israel had come a long way. God brought them out of Egypt, and He used Moses and Joshua to lead them to the Promised Land and then go through the long and difficult process of conquering it. They saw the Red Sea and the Jordan River part. God gave them manna and quail in the wilderness, and He made water come out of rock. He made the thick walls of Jericho fall with trumpet blasts! He even made the sun stand still so they could defeat six cities in one day. After that, God led them to defeat more enemies until they conquered the land. But after Joshua died, the Israelites started to forget everything they had seen. They worshiped statues instead of God, and He wasn’t very happy about that. In fact, He became so angry that He sent more enemies against them, and the Israelites became slaves to a new enemy. But then, they remembered God and prayed. So He heard them and raised up a judge named Othniel. He was Caleb’s little brother. Othniel led the Israelites to victory, and they defeated their enemy. After Othniel died, Israel forgot God again, so He sent them another enemy. Then they prayed, and God sent Ehud to be their judge and lead them to victory. After Ehud came Shamgar. But then, Israel forgot God AGAIN! You’d think they’d learn their lesson!

This time, God punished them again by sending a Canaanite King named Jabin to attack them. His army general was named Sisera, a nasty character. Sisera did terrible things with his chariots and army, and for twenty years, Israel was miserable under his cruelty. By this point, there was a new judge named Deborah. She was also a prophetess, and she got a message from God. She obeyed what He told her to do. She sent for a man named Barak of the tribe of Naphtali, and when he arrived she told him, “God commands you to go, lead the men of the tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun to Mount Tabor. God will lure Sisera and his army to the Kishon River, and you will defeat them.”

But Barak was scared out of his mind. He responded, “I’ll go, but only if you come with me.”

Deborah said, “OK, I’ll go, but since you don’t trust God enough, a woman will defeat Sisera!”

So Deborah and Barak set out, leading the armies of the Israelite tribes of Naphtali and Zebulun, and they went to Mount Tabor. When Sisera got word that they had gone there, he led his army to the Kishon River, just as God had said would happen.

Deborah told Barak, “Go! This is the day God promised! He has given Sisera into your hands!” So Barak led his army of ten thousand soldiers down the mountain to meet their enemy. God sent an earthquake and a powerful rainstorm. Barak’s army defeated Sisera’s, and many of the enemy soldiers were swept away by the river! Israel chased the survivors of Sisera’s army, and not one of them survived.

But Sisera got away! He escaped to the tent of Heber, the man who had warned him that the Israelites were coming. Heber’s wife Jael welcomed him in. Sisera was all tired out from fighting and running, and he asked her to hide him and to give him a drink. She gave him some milk and let him get some sleep, covering him. Once he had fallen asleep, Jael took a tent peg, quietly snuck up to him, and…

Pretty soon, Barak and his army arrived in pursuit of General Sisera. Jael ran out of her tent and told Barak, “Come see! I have something to show you!” He stepped into her tent and found the evil Sisera, dead, with a tent peg in his head.

So, just as God promised, He helped Barak and Deborah to defeat Sisera’s army, but Sisera himself was defeated by a woman.

That day, Deborah and Barak sang a song of praise to God for saving them from their evil oppressor and leading them to victory.

The Sun Stands Still

This morning's Sunday school lesson, from Joshua 9-10...


Word was getting around. Egypt had been hit with ten nasty and deadly plagues. The Red Sea had parted for the people of Israel, and fire and cloud had led them forward. As they advanced in their slow 40-year journey across the wilderness, they had defeated everyone who attacked them. Heshbon, Bashan and Ashtaroth had fallen. Now Israel had crossed the Jordan River, which had also parted for them! Soon after, Jericho fell, literally. Israel suffered a defeat at Ai because Achan had stolen from Jericho, but once they got that straightened out, Ai was destroyed. Everyone in the surrounding cities was terrified, and they got together to try to put an end to General Joshua and his scary army of Israelites. Everyone but Gibeon. They were scared too, but they were clever and decided to try a more crafty way of not being killed.

The men of Gibeon came up with a plan. They found some dry and moldy bread, put on worn-out clothes, and they made sure everything they brought with them looked old, cracked and worn. They found Joshua and the Israelites nearby and told him their sad story. “We’re from a far-off country, and we’ve heard reports of everything your God has done, and how you’ve been victorious against everyone you’ve fought. We’ve come a long way to make peace with you. We don’t want to be any trouble to you, and we were wondering if you could sign a treaty with us. Look at this moldy bread. It was fresh and steaming when we left home! Look what the long journey has done to our clothes and sandals!”

The Israelites looked at the Gibeonites’ clothes, tasted their bread, and saw that it looked like they were telling the truth. They just forgot one thing…to ask God about it. So Joshua and the Israelites believed the lie and made a treaty with Gibeon. Three days later, the truth came out. These guys were neighbors! Israel wanted to punish those crafty Gibeonites for fooling them, but they had made a promise to protect them. So instead, the leaders of Israel made them cut wood and carry water for them.

King Adoni-Zedek of Jerusalem soon heard that Joshua had destroyed Ai and signed a treaty with Gibeon, an important city that was even bigger than Ai. Gibeon had a lot of good fighters. The combined forces of Israel and Gibeon were even scarier than just Israel. So Adoni-Zedek called four other kings from nearby cities, and together, they marched to attack Gibeon.

The Gibeonites sent word to Joshua: “Help! We’re your servants, and now five kings and their armies are attacking us! Come quick and save us!”

This time, Joshua learned from his earlier mistake. Last time, he hadn’t asked God about the treaty, and they had been tricked because of it. Now, Joshua prayed. God answered, “Don’t worry, I’ve got it. Go and defeat these five armies. Not one of them will be able to stand.”

So Joshua and the Israelites marched all night and took the attacking armies by surprise. God threw their enemies into confusion, and Israel defeated them and chased them away, defeating more and more as they chased them. As the enemies continued to flee, God sent a big hailstorm, and the huge chunks of ice killed more enemies than the Israelites did with their swords.

The day was getting on, and Joshua was worried that it would get dark and some of their enemies might get away. So once again, he prayed:

“O sun, stand still over Gibeon,
O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon!”

The sun was directly overhead, and there it stayed for almost a day. The sun, moon and earth stopped moving, and God gave Joshua and the Israelites extra time to defeat five united armies in one very long day. God had never done that before, and He hasn’t done it since then.

The five kings were so scared that they hid in a cave near the city of Makkedah. When Joshua found out about that, he told the Israelites to block the cave with rocks so the kings couldn’t get out, and then they defeated almost every single enemy soldier. Then he let the kings out, and they didn’t live to tell the tale. The Israelites then defeated Makkedah. So it was that in one very long day, God helped the Israelites to defeat six cities!

Jacob

I did the Sunday school lesson this morning and thought I'd share. Since the main lesson was only a few verses, and not a lot happened, I thought I'd start with a review of the story up to now. The whole thing covers Genesis 25-35.


The Story so far:

The day had finally arrived! Isaac and Rebekah had been waiting for this day for many years, and at last they were about to have twins! The first one came out, and they noticed he had red hair all over. So what to name him? Hairy (or Esau in Hebrew)! The second boy wasn’t far behind. In fact, he was holding onto his brother’s heel. So naturally, why not name him “He Grasps the Heel”? Too complicated? OK, let’s translate “he grasps the heel” into Hebrew: Jacob! As Hairy and Heel-Grasper got older, they developed a rivalry. Isaac liked his older son Esau better, but Rebekah preferred the younger son, Jacob. One day, Esau was out working, while Jacob stayed home and made some stew. When Esau got home, he was all tired out and starving, and all he could think of that he needed to eat something now! As he got near the house, he smelled something cooking, and he got even hungrier. Jacob was sneaky, though. He could see that his big brother was desperate to eat, and he would give anything…like, say, his birthright!

A while later, Isaac realized he wasn’t getting any younger, and he needed to pass on the blessing to his firstborn son, so he told Esau to go hunt for food to bring to him so he could bless him. But while he was gone, Rebekah made some food and helped Jacob to pretend to be Esau and get his father’s blessing. When Esau came back and found out that Jacob had tricked him again, he was steaming mad! So mad that he wanted to kill his brother.

So Jacob ran for his life. On the way, he stopped for the night. He found a nice comfy rock to use for a pillow and laid down on the ground. That night, he dreamed that he saw a stairway going from the ground up into heaven, with angels going up and down it. At the top of the stairway, he saw God. In the dream, God promised him that He would take care of him, that Jacob would be the father of a great nation, and that He would bring him back home one day. In the morning, Jacob got up and named the place Bethel, or House of God. He put the stone he had used as a pillow and set it there as a reminder of this promise. He promised God that he would serve Him.

When Jacob got to his uncle’s house, he fell in love with his cousin Rachel, and he worked for his Uncle Laban seven years so that he could marry her. But sneakiness ran in the family. After the wedding, Jacob discovered that he had actually married Rachel’s sister Leah. So he had to work another seven years to marry Rachel. So it was that Jacob had eleven sons and a daughter during the time he lived there. (Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Dinah, Joseph. Benjamin wasn’t born yet.)

Finally the time came to leave, and Jacob took his wives and children and livestock and left. But on the way home, he found out that his brother Esau was coming to meet him. The last time he’d seen Esau, he had been threatening to kill him! While he was on the way to meet his brother, God met him and wrestled with him. When that happened, God gave him a new name: “He Wrestles with God” (or Israel)! When Esau saw his brother Israel, he ran to him, and they hugged. They were friends again. Then Jacob and his family settled in the city of Shechem.

Now we pick up the story where we left off…

One day, God commanded Jacob to go back to Bethel and build an altar. So Jacob obeyed. But before he left, he told everyone in his family that they were about to go worship God. He told them about how God had always helped him when he needed help, and had taken care of him. Now they needed to get rid of their idols and earrings. At the time, the earrings some of them were wearing were used as charms to worship false gods. Jacob took the idols and earrings and buried them under a big oak tree.

The whole big family then set out for Bethel. When they got there, Jacob obeyed God and built an altar. God met him and reminded him about his new name. He was no longer Jacob, but Israel. God promised him again that he would be the father of a great nation. Not only would he have thousands of descendents, but some of them would even be kings! He also promised him to give him this land as He had done for Jacob’s father Isaac and grandfather Abraham.

To mark the occasion, Jacob set up a stone pillar to remember the promise. Once again, he called the place Bethel, or House of God.