July 2023 – Page 3 – What Does This Mean?

Sunday School: Solomon Asks for Wisdom

Encore Post: When God invited Solomon to ask for a blessing, Solomon asked for wisdom. Solomon’s request pleased God for several reasons. First, he was humble, realizing his limitations. He was still very young and had little experience governing. Second, he sought to serve God first. He asked for wisdom — the ability to use knowledge well to meet needs and discernment — the ability to tell right from wrong. He sought first God’s Kingdom and righteousness. God granted him what he asked for — and riches, fame and long life as well.

King Solomon was the son of King David and Bathsheba. His life shows how completely God forgives, since David committed great sins with and because of Bathsheba. They deserved to die, but God forgave them, let them live and gave them a second son. Solomon would be an ancestor of the Messiah.

Under Solomon, Israel became a prosperous and powerful nation. Solomon was a great organizer. He reformed the kingdom’s bureaucracy, making it more efficient and channeling its prosperity effectively. He built God’s Holy Temple and numerous other buildings. He became a collector of proverbs, many of which appear in the Book of Proverbs. According to tradition, the Books of Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs are written by the King, although much debate about this exists among scholars.

As great as he was, Solomon was a sinner also. He married hundreds of wives, mainly to secure treaties. He allowed them to worship the gods of their fathers and even constructed temples for them. For this reason, God caused the kingdom to be divided during his son’s reign. Yet, for the sake of the one greater than Solomon, his sins are forgiven, along with ours.

Sunday School: David and Goliath

Encore Post: When Saul and David lived, war was very personal. Most of the fighting was done with swords, shields and other weapons in hand-to-hand combat. Sometimes it was very hard to predict who would win a battle. Yet everyone knew hundreds to thousands of soldiers on both sides would die. To spare the armies of such losses, the two sides would sometimes agree to have their two best soldiers fight the battle for their armies. These soldiers were called champions.

Goliath proposed to fight for the Philistines. If he won, Israel would surrender to them. If he lost, the Philistines would surrender. All of Goliath’s strength did him no good since he couldn’t reach David with his sword. David used his sling. Men from the tribe of Benjamin were known for their marksmanship with a sling. Like them David learned his skill with the weapon fending off animals that attacked his sheep. God guided David’s stone, which killed the giant. He finished off Goliath with the Philistine’s own sword. But the Philistine army did not honor the agreement, but broke ranks and fled. The army of Israel followed them, killing many as they ran.

Saul recognized talent when he saw it. He kept David with him and sent him out on military missions. As David won victory after victory, the people came to love him. David became a good friend of Saul’s son Jonathan. Saul would eventually give David his daughter Michal in marriage. Soon Saul would become jealous of David’s fame and see him as a threat to his throne.

David’ s descendent, Jesus is our champion. He fought sin, death and the devil for us on the cross, suffered and died for our sins and rose from the grave to defeat them. Because our Champion died for us, we now will live with Him forever.

Sunday School: David and Saul

Encore Post: David was a good man. He was a soldier who defended his king and his country. The people loved him and loved King Saul because of him. Prince Jonathan was his best friend. Princess Michal loved him and married him.

Yet King Saul was jealous of him. Like most kings, he was afraid of anyone that might take his kingdom from him. Because Saul saw David as a threat, he missed out on the good things a loyal and talented son-in-law could bring him. So Saul tried to kill David. Jonathan and Michal warn David and help him escape Saul’s grasp. The future king seeks out Samuel and together they hide in the wild areas near Bethlehem. For awhile, he hid in various Philistine cities and eventually returned to caves near Bethlehem. Members of his family and four hundred fighting men gathered with him there.

Soon Saul would send an army to look for David and eventually led them. They played a cat-and-mouse game for some time. Twice David snuck into Saul’s camp and took a personal item from him. Each time he would display the item to Saul in the morning to prove his loyalty. Eventually, Saul gave up the effort to catch David and went after the Philistines. Saul, Jonathan and most of Saul’s sons died in battle with them.

David would have been justified to take the throne from Saul. No one would blame him if he killed Saul. But David loved God and Saul. He remained loyal until the day Saul and Jonathan died. Even when he had chances to kill Saul, he spared the king. After their death, he assumed the throne of Israel. For the rest of his life, he protected the disabled son of Jonathan.

Sunday School: King Saul

Encore Post: After Joshua’s death, God let each tribe of Israel rule their own lands. When they were needed, God appointed judges to settle disputes and lead them in battle. But the tribes did not act as one people. They were not impressed with the sons of their greatest judge, Samuel. So the people asked God for a king to unite them, fight their battles and give them a sense of pride. What the people did not see was the down side — kings do whatever they want and take whatever they want. If they do not serve God, then the people would become slaves in their own country. They did not listen, so God granted their wish.

He sent to Samuel a handsome, tall and charismatic young man named Saul. He was the son of a rich man from the tribe of Benjamin. Samuel anointed him king over Israel. At first, Saul was very successful. He raised a large army and liberated some Israelites from the Ammonites. He won a few victories against the Philistines with inferior weapons. He defeated the Amalekites and killed everyone of them, yet spared their king against God’s command.

So, in the end, King Saul disobeyed God and did what he pleased. So God took the Kingdom of Israel back from him and gave it to a shepherd boy, David. A thousand years later, Jesus, the Son of David, served God and His people. He suffered and died for our sins and rose again to defeat sin, death and the power of the devil. One day, He will return with the armies of Heaven to defeat these forces forever. In that day, we will live under the King of Kings forever.

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Sunday School: Samuel’s Call

Encore Post: Samuel is a unique figure in the history of God’s people. Samuel was the last and greatest of Israel’s Judges and the one through whom God would anoint Israel’s first two kings. As a Levite, dedicated to the Lord, he served as a priest. God called him also as a prophet. He was the only figure in the Old Testament who served in all three sacred offices: prophet, priest and king. In this way, Samuel paved the way for Jesus, Who is the greatest of all — Prophet, Priest and King.

Samuel’s birth was also unique. His mother, Hannah, was barren and prayed for the birth of a son. When Samuel was born, she gave him to the Lord so that the boy would serve as a priest in the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle was Israel’s first temple. It was a tent, whose layout was similar to the temple that would follow it. Here in its Holy of Holies was kept the Ark of the Covenant, which contained the tablets of God‘s law, Moses Staff and other items that witnessed to God’s miracles in the desert years. Samuel’s duty that night was to keep the lamps lit all evening.

While he was sleeping near the sanctuary, God called out to Samuel. Thinking the voice was that of the high priest, Eli, he went to him. Eli instructed him to go back to bed. When God called two more times, Eli told him to say to God: “Speak, Lord, your servant listens.” God gave Samuel the first of many prophecies that night.

When Samuel was old, the people of Israel pressed him to give them a king, like all the neighboring nations. They believed it would unite them. Samuel warned them that substituting a human king for God their King, would bring only trouble. He would, in a sense, enslave them. They did not listen. God told Samuel to give in. He revealed to the prophet-judge-priest that Saul would be king — handsome, strong and able — everything they thought a king should be.

At first, Saul was very successful. But soon his power convinced him he could do anything he wished. Even though he was not a priest, he personally sacrificed to the Lord. Even when God ordered the complete destruction of an enemy people and not to take plunder from them, he spared their king and and took plunder. God deposed him and chose David of Bethlehem, son of Jesse, as his successor. Samuel anointed him king.

Sunday School: Ruth

Encore Post: In ancient times, a widow was on her own. She had no means to support herself or her family. If she was fortunate enough to have adult sons, they would care for her. If she did not, she was completely at the mercy of her relatives. Most ancient societies put great importance on descendants to inherit the family name and fortunes. To be a widow without sons meant the family line would die with her.

God’s laws for Israel provided for that. It required a man’s brother to marry his widow. The children born of that marriage would be the deceased legal heirs and inherit all his property. This duty was a disadvantage to the brother. If he declined to perform it, the nearest relative would take his place.

Naomi and Ruth were in an especially tough spot. They were both widowed and Ruth childless. They lived in a foreign land where no family lived to help them. Ruth so loved and honored her mother-in-law, that she would not hear of abandoning her. In addition, she had come to believe in the God of Israel. So they returned to Naomi’s home — Bethlehem.

God had also not forsaken the two women. He protected them and led them home, where Naomi’s relatives looked after them. She helped Ruth understand the culture of Israel, which helped them to find food to eat in gleaning in the fields of Boaz, the relative of Naomi’s husband. Even though Ruth was a gentile, Bethlehem received her as one of the members of their family. Boaz shows the true, selfless character of a redeemer — one who would establish a line for his relative by marrying Ruth and having a child with her, buying back all the property of Naomi and Ruth’s husbands and preserving it for their descendents.

But, as usual, God had bigger plans for his daughters. It was through their descendents that his Son would be born. The son of Ruth and Boaz was Obed, father of Jesse, father of King David. Through them the redeemer of all would be born. When Matthew selected generations to mention in the genealogy of Jesus, he did not fail to mention Ruth, one of very few women in the list. God had redeemed her and through her has redeemed the whole world.

Sunday School: Deborah and the Judges

Encore Posts: Through Joshua, God defeated the Canaanites in the land he promised to his people. He instructed them to kill all of these people, since they were devoted to particularly evil gods — chiefly Baal and his wife Asherah. They were fertility gods. Their religion promised many children and abundant crops to their followers. Part of their worship involved sexual relations with temple prostitutes and child sacrifice to influence the gods to give them what they desired. Yet Israel did not listen to God and let some of them live. This would lead to no end of trouble for them.

After Joshua died, God ruled the people of Israel directly — mostly through judges. For the most part, this worked well. Yet because often the people of Israel would fall into the temptation of worshipping the gods of Canaan, at times God allowed the Canaanites to raid or conquer one area of the land or another. When His people prayed to Him for help, God would raise up a judge in Israel to gather them together and defeat their enemies. Deborah was one of these judges. She is the only female judge mentioned in Scripture. She also one of a very few prophetesses mentioned among God’s people. Her role was political — to settle disputes between various peoples in Israel and to summon them to battle.

Deborah brought the tribes together to fight. The battle was not promising. Israel did not have chariots and faced an army that did. When the battle began, a thunderstorm soaked the field, bogging down the chariots in mud. In the confusion, the Canaanite general Sisera was defeated and fled. Once again, it is God Who rescues His people from foreign armies. They turn again to worship Him as long as Deborah lives.

During these years, the relationship between God and the people went through a depressing cycle. When they forgot what God did for them, they started to worship Canaanite gods. God would send their neighbors to harass and oppress them. They would cry to God for help. He would raise up a judge like Deborah to rescue them. They would honor God as long as the judge lived. With each cycle, the people would grow worse.

Like the people of Israel, we also go through a similar pattern. When God has mercy on us and blesses us, when honor him. Eventually we take his blessing for granted and he allows us to be afflicted with the consequences of our sins. We call out for help and God rescues us. Ultimately, it leads to physical death. Yet God has sent the Judge of Judges to rescue us. He did battle with sin, death and the devil for us. By his death he destroyed death and earned for us everlasting life. On the last day, the cycle will end once and for all. We will live forever in his blessing .

Sunday School: Joshua and the Battle of Jericho

Encore Post: Joshua was a young man when God freed his people from Egypt. When the people of Israel arrived at the border of the promised land the first time, he was one of twelve spies Moses sent into the land. Most of the spies were afraid of the armies in the land, but Joshua was confident that with God’s help, Israel could defeat those who lived there. Because the people were afraid, God decided that the people would wander in the wilderness for forty years. During this time, Moses made Joshua his trusted assistant and named him as the the leader who would follow Moses. When Moses died, Joshua took Moses’ place. Not long after that, the Captain of the Army of the Lord appeared to him. Many theologians believe this general is the second person of the Trinity — the Angel of the Lord. Under his direction, Joshua parted the Jordan River and led the people into Canaan. The first challenge was the strong city of Jericho, located where the Jordan River meets the Dead Sea.

Joshua and Jesus have the same name. It come from the same Hebrew words that mean: God saves. God told Joseph and Mary to name His Son Jesus, because He would save His people from their sins. Joshua’s parents named him Hoshea, which means salvation. Moses changed his name to Joshua. In ancient times, a name was a kind of motto. Joshua depended upon God to give the people of Israel victory when they went to war. Because Joshua trusted God, Joshua led the people of Israel to capture Jericho and the rest of the promised land. Jesus lived a perfect life, suffered, died on the cross, rose from the dead. When He did these things, He paid the price for our sins, won forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. Jesus is more than just a man who died for us. He is literally God who saves us.

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