READING FOR JANUARY 27, 2025: JUDGES 3, JOHN 17, PSALM 147:12-20 JUDGES 3 We learned in chapter 2 that God was displeased with Israel for not driving out all the Canaanites from the land. Now He intends to use them as a test to see if Israel will obey Him rather than be influenced by the cultures surrounding them. Also, we see that God will use this situation to keep Israel battle ready. Sometimes the indigenous people left in the land are called by the umbrella name of Canaanites. Here they are disaggregated by people groups: Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. The first failed test by Israel was intermarrying with these groups. Some Christian groups have misread this to mean white people should not marry people of other races. Bob Jones University, for example, held that belief until issuing a beautiful statement of repentance not many years ago. God still prohibits believers today from marrying nonbelievers: Do not be mismatched with unbelievers; for what do righteousness and lawlessness share together, or what does light have in common with darkness? (2 Cor. 6:14). What happened in Judges explains why this prohibition exists: they “served their gods.”
As we have seen, God loves Israel too much to let them to continue in this ungodly drift. He sold them into the hand of the King of Mesopotamia for eight years. As will become a pattern, Israel finally cried out to the Lord. In response, God raised up a deliverer, the first judge. It is none other than feisty old Caleb’s son-in-law, Othniel. As happened throughout the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit came upon this man for this particular mission. (Since Pentecost, all Christians now receive the Holy Spirit.) Othniel delivered Israel, leading to 40 years of peace.
After this, Israel again began to fail the test, so God allowed Eglon, King of Moab to reign over Israel for 18 years. Once again, they cried out to God. Once again God raised up a deliverer judge: Ehud. The story of how Ehud boldly and cleverly killed Eglon would be highly comical if it were not dealing with death; it is worth reading in full (vs. 15-30). The result was freedom for Israel from Moab and 80 more years of peace. Then there is a passing story of another hero: Shamgar. He personally killed 600 Philistines armed only with an ox goad (a stick). Our problem in the Lord’s work is not too little technology or money, but too few spirit-filled workers who heed the Lord’s call to action: “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore plead with the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest” (Luke 10: 2).
JOHN 17 What a privilege we are given in this chapter, to see into the very heart of Jesus as he approaches his arrest and coming crucifixion. What did you notice as you read this chapter? If you were in Jesus’ sandals what would your focus be? Your prayer? Your tone of voice? N.T. Wright writes so beautifully (in “John for Everyone”, pp 64-71) about the prayers of Jesus for his followers that we’ll use his words for our reflections today:
“In essence the prayer draws together everything that the gospel story has been about up to this point. In particular, the very fact of Jesus’ prayer is a living embodiment of that intimate union with the Father of
READING FOR JANUARY 27, 2025 CONTINUED: JOHN 17, PSALM 147:12-20
which we have heard so much. When you enter into this chapter and see what happens, you are being invited to come into the heart of that intimate relation between Jesus and the Father. . . That is what the prayer embodies and is also its central subject matter.
What Jesus now prays grows out of the fact that he is going away. He is entrusting the disciples to the Father he has known and loved throughout his own earthly life, the Father who, he knows, will care for them every bit as much as he has done himself. He is very much aware that the disciples are at risk. The world, which hates them as it hated him, will threaten and abuse them. They don’t belong to it, but they are about to be sent into it, and they need protecting. That’s what this prayer is about.
What they now need is to be kept from being pulled back into “the world” with all its wickedness and rebellion. During his ministry, teaching them and leading them, Jesus has looked after them like the shepherd with his sheep. . . Now, because he is coming to the Father, he is entrusting them to the Fatherwho will continue the work of keeping them safe.
As we read verse 20, we realize that Jesus is talking about us! About you and me! “Those who believe in me through their word,” that is through the word of his followers. His followers announced the message around the world. Those who heard them passed it on. And on, and on, and on. The church is never more than one generation away from extinction; all it would take is for a single generation not to hand the word on. But it’s never happened. People have always told other people. . . It’s awesome, when you come to think about it.
What is Jesus praying for, as he thinks about you and me and all the other followers in this and every generation? He longed that we should all be one. United. This unity isn’t to be a formal arrangement. It isn’t just an outward thing. It is based on, and must mirror, nothing less than the unity between the Father and the Son, that unity that much of the book has been explaining and exploring. Just as the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father, so we too are to live within that unity. That can only mean that we ourselves must be united. And, in case we might miss the point, the result of this will be that the world will see, and know, that this kind of human community, united across all traditional barriers of race, custom, gender, or class, can only come from the action of the Creator God. “so that the world may believe. . .”
In addition, Jesus returns to an earlier theme. (see 12:26 and 14:3). His followers are to be “with him,” to see his glory. They are to know and experience the fact that the Father has exalted him as the sovereign of the world. They are to know that the love which the Creator God has given to him has installed him as the loving Lord of all. It is this Jesus, this man who prayed for you and me, this high priest who set himself apart for the Father’s glad service, whom we shall now watch as he goes forward to complete the work of love.
PSALM 147:12-20 We conclude this Psalm of praise by including blessings imparted particular- ly to God’s people Jerusalem/Zion, which likely could be thought as extending to all Christians today—to us. These include His protection, our children, peace, His provisions, His sovereignty, silver-white winters that melt into spring, and best of this list: His Word. LET’S PRAISE GOD FOR THE RICHES WE FIND EACH DAY IN HIS WORD. PRAISE THE LORD!
