Wednesday Word 9.01.2021

 

1 Samuel 4:1-2, 9-11   New Living Translation

4:1 And Samuel’s words went out to all the people of Israel. At that time Israel was at war with the Philistines. The Israelite army was camped near Ebenezer, and the Philistines were at Aphek. 2 The Philistines attacked and defeated the army of Israel, killing 4,000 men.

9 Fight as never before, Philistines! If you don’t, we will become the Hebrews’ slaves just as they have been ours! Stand up like men and fight!” 10 So the Philistines fought desperately, and Israel was defeated again. The slaughter was great; 30,000 Israelite soldiers died that day. The survivors turned and fled to their tents. 11 The Ark of God was captured, and Hophni and Phinehas, the two sons of Eli, were killed.

The Old Testament is difficult for us to get a hold of sometimes. Like I always lament, “All that smiting!” We think of those days of upheaval and turmoil and warring neighbors as a way of life existing only in ages long past. Obviously, people must not have been very smart in those days. They couldn’t work out their problems without annihilating each other. They couldn’t figure out how to honor and obey the one true God Almighty for any appreciable length of time. Thank you, God, for sending Jesus Christ to straighten us out.

Now that we have Jesus, we have no warring factions anywhere in the world. We have learned to resolve all our differences with grace and mercy; the same grace and mercy that we count on to save us. We take care of every one who is in need. We demonstrate love to every living soul. We have learned how to honor and obey the one true God Almighty all the time, not just in little spurts when we need something. Oh, yeah, wait, right…maybe we have a lot more in common with the twelve tribes of the Old Testament than we think…something to pray about.

Don’t forget to look for the Lord today. Vicki H.





                                                                  photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash


 

 











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