Teaching Session #29 - 8 March 2020
The Book of Judges
Main speaker - David Wilkins
Leader for the evening - Jono Pearce
David writes:
"The Book of Judges contains many of the most well known Old Testament characters in the Bible. Everyone has heard of Gideon and his fleece before the Lord, of Samson and his long hair. But at the same time few have looked into what the book is really about, possibly because it is one of the most disturbing and unsettling books of the Old Testament. Beginning exactly where the Book of Joshua left off, it tells of a budding nation still struggling to hold onto the land it’s taken and to work out their moral code in the land of Israel. But from the death of Joshua, as he had warned them, their situation appears to grow from bad to worse, to rock bottom at the end of the book. The judges (leader is a better translation) are usually flawed, and only hold the people in check when they are around. Indeed it ends with the telling point that Israel needs a king, because “in those days when there was no king, everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” A point born out when in the last five chapters there is not only no king, but no judge either. Unfortunately, the only person who’d want to be a king in Israel, is the last person any sane person would ever want to be a king. See Jotham’s parable of the king of the trees, in Judges 9 1-17. However the book has many lessons for now, as well as then. See how despite the continual unfaithfulness of the people of God, the Lord will still save his people again and again. A true display of how grace works."
David Wilkins will unpack this complicated, troubling but amazing book on Sunday 8 March at 6.30pm. We are also delighted to welcome Jono Pearce as our MC for the first time.
Bring your Bibles, bring your insatiable curiosity and find out what we can learn from what could be seen as one of the worst books in the Bible. We will ask the question, where did it all go wrong?
Resources available from the session: