A (7:09)

Yeah. And then the Lord had said to the Levites, he said that you won't have any land to inherit. Because I'm your inheritance.

B (7:15)

Yeah, that.

A (7:16)

That the Lord himself is your inheritance. Now, you mentioned just a second ago that journey through numbers. And then at the end, Deuteronomy, Moses's words were saying that this was boot camp, and it was training. It was. It was getting them ready. And in some ways, you know, I think about it, like, as a retreat, too, but maybe not a. Maybe boot camp is a way better phrase, better way to understand this. It's kind of that sense of, okay, you've been protected, isolated in many ways out in the wilderness, but you're going to have to go into this land where you can't forget me. You have to remember what I've done. And as you said, a big call is to pass on to your children, teach your children about me, because you have to be unique amongst these people. Again, in the wilderness, maybe you've been protected from infiltration. Although we actually had seen a number of stories towards the end of the Book of Numbers where they weren't necessarily protected. They did intermingle with the peoples that they were among. But this is going to be showtime, like you said, and that sense of, okay, how are you going to move forward? If this is the land, the promised land, there's going to be a certain way to live. But then for us, then there's going to be a certain attitude we need to have when we're reading these stories. Because that's going to determine, I think, a lot when it comes to whether we're approaching these stories, the scripture, this history, God's working with cynicism and skepticism, or whether we're going to approach this time period with faith.

B (8:36)

Right? Well, you're exactly right. We have to approach the scripture from an attitude, a certain attitude. And I would say there's two attitudes that we have to have. One is that all of our friends who are going to be joining you throughout this period are going to approach the difficult text in one of two ways. One, God is on trial, and that is. I don't like this. This doesn't fit. This wouldn't fly today. Okay, God, explain yourself, because I've already kind of, you know, the jury has come back in, and I'm finding you wanting in these stories. And so people can approach it that way, or you can approach it as St. Thomas suggests, and that is that God is not arbitrary. You can approach this from the standpoint of trust. I know that he is faithful. I know that he's merciful. I know that he is just, and he has covenant faithfulness. Therefore, Lord, I'm going to read it from that standpoint. And as St. Augustine says, if I can't understand it, I have to dwell here a little longer until I can see what I need to see. That's One thing is we really want to challenge people about their perspective when they approach these stories. And then the second is you have to remember that this was written for you. This was written to encourage you. And it reveals God and it reveals us. And this is ultimately about you. It's about you. And what happens to Israel certainly happens to us.

A (10:11)

But.

B (10:12)

But please, Lord, may our response be one of faithfulness, because we have learned about Jesus Christ. And so those are the two perspectives. It's not just their story. This is my story too. And what is my attitude as I read these stories?

A (10:27)

Well, it's so important and powerful also not to stop reading. There was, you know, in this last section that we had when it came to desert wanderings, there was a section in Deuteronomy where the Lord talks about the blessings and the curses. And I know that for many people who contacted me after this, as part of this community journeying through scripture, they contacted me saying, like, this is really disturbing. I don't like the fact that God has said, if you are faithful, you have these blessings. And if you're not faithful, there's these curses. And because they said, it just seems like here's God trying to instill the fear of God in them or trying to, like, maybe buy their affection by their faith because of, again, this kind of coercion kind of situation. And yet when you keep reading the very next day, which I understand, I understand that coming from a modern perspective, again, as you mentioned, from the perspective where God is on trial. And if I don't understand it, it must be because I know of unfair judges. Here's a God who reveals he's a good dad, but I know of bad dads, that kind of situation where we get all mixed up like this. But the next day is the following chapter where the Lord says, basically, or Moses says that, and those are the blessings and curses. But here is what God would say. He'll give. Yes, he visits those curses upon you so that you can once again come to repentance. And it's this sense of it's never about the curse. It's never about the. The. The end isn't meant to be destruction. The end is meant to be. I will allow these curses to come upon you. I'll allow this, this destruction to visit upon you so that you can come back. And that's what we're going to see right Even here in. In Joshua and Judges, this kind of almost this cycle of unfaithfulness and then destruction and then repentance.

B (12:06)

And yeah, you know, the the one text that I think really stands out to me about this, the conquest with Joshua, is when Joshua says, you know, he looks at the landscape and what the choices are out there now that they've come into the land. And he says, as for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord. And that's the, that's the question that, that we would ask of anybody listening to the readings or actually reading the Bible is, who are you going to serve? Now that moves into that next part of the green period, and that's the Judges. And the book of Judges is a long book. And the way to understand it is that at the end of Joshua, Joshua dies. And suddenly they don't have any leadership anymore. They had Moses for 80 years, they had Joshua, and now they don't have any central leadership at all. And they go through this rather lengthy period of time with no leadership. And what happens is they enter into a cycle that is just deadly. And it's repeating seven times in the Book of Judges. And it starts off with sin. And that sin, just remember S's here. The sin leads to servitude. And isn't that a truth? Sin leads to servitude. We become slaves. The servitude, the slavery leads to supplication. We pray and we ask God, please deliver us. And that supplication leads to salvation. God raises up a judge, which is not like Judge Judy, but it is like a warrior king almost. And then they receive victory. And then after that, salvation, then we see this repetition sin entering in again. And this goes over and over seven times in the Book of Judges. And Father, sometimes when I read this, I almost want to say, guys, hello. But then I'm looking in the mirror, you know, it's like, hello, Jeff. And I find myself in this. And it's like, why didn't you guys get it? Because we didn't. You know, how come you didn't fly? Right, Because I didn't.

A (14:20)

What they keep forgetting, right? There's this, the silence in the land where God blesses them. And then, as you said, they just. It seems like on this repeat thing of, like, this, this I just forget and I just turn away and I let myself drift. And one of the big, big things it seems like is that if they would just remember, if they would just. I know this is. It reminds me so in so many ways of, in the Christian life, how we're called to not just make the decision one time for Jesus to be the Lord of my life, but every day is that sense of, okay, let me remember what has God done in my life? Let me remember he's present here right now. Let me remember what he. What is he calling me towards? And then everything in my life becomes his dominion and that, that he gets to be the leader of the life. And yet again, the big temptation for all of us is to forget this and what happens is, you know, go off the rails.

B (15:13)

Well, we have 12 judges in the book of Judges. And some of them, they're not all one after the other. There are times when there is a couple of judges at the same time in different areas of the land. And you have to remember that when you read it. And, and there's 12 of them. One woman, her name is Deborah. In Hebrew, Devorah buzzing bee is what it means in Hebrew. And we know of Deborah. But the most famous of all the judges is Samson. And Samson is an extraordinary individual. He is no doubt a very good looking man. He is a practical joker. He loves women. And he has also taken an extraordinary vow. Imagine that, you know, you take a vow and yet you're struggling with everything. Everyone else is struggling, but you took a vow. And that vow is called a Nazirite vow, which means that you are holy unto the Lord, you are sanctified unto the Lord. You're not a priest, but you are sanctified. And this could be a man or a woman, by the way scripture tells us, and you don't cut your hair, and that length of your hair is a sign of your faithfulness, your covenant faithfulness to God. And then he meets Delilah, who is not one of the Jewish women. She is from the neighboring nations, the Philistines. And everything goes sideways at this point.

A (16:41)

Yeah, and that's so interesting because even though, like you said, even though here's Samson, who's been set apart as the Nazirite, he regularly seems to break this vow. He regularly seems, I mean, even, even the story of Samson and the lion before the Samson and Delilah, that he, you know, even eats honey out of the dead carcass of the lion. And as a Nazarite, those who would make a Nazareth now, he wouldn't come into contact with, but he doesn't seem overly preoccupied with others. And that's one of the things that we realize is some of these judges, they're not, as you said, not merely are they not Judge Judy, they're not all great. Like, they're not, they do the job, but they're not necessarily kind of like some of the other characters we've met in the course of this Bible, the scripture time, is that even though they're called by God, and even though God can use them, not everything they do is, hey, go do that. And not everything they do is the role model, example for us to follow. And Samson's very. He's consistent in that line of people who have been called by God, the spirit of the Lord is upon them, set apart by the Lord for service, but not always faithful to that being set apart.

B (17:54)

One of the keys to reading the Bible, as we're doing in chronological order as a narrative, I just want to remind everybody, these are all stories, but they're all part of a story. And that bigger story is the story of salvation history and God's firstborn son among all the nations, Israel. And it is a story of a covenant relationship with God. And what we see in Samson is certainly great stories. It's almost entertaining. But what we see is a microcosm of the macro reality of Israel. In other words, what is happening to Samson individually is really happening to the nation. And that is they're supposed to be separate, holy unto the Lord, as it said back in Leviticus. And what they're doing is they're getting entangled with the Philistines, the neighboring nations. And what makes Israel strong is their uniqueness in their covenant relationship. And when he meets Delilah, what does she go after? She goes after Samson, my darling Ra, what makes you so unique? What makes you so different? And then he starts toying with sin here. And in a sense, you could say, all right, we're kind of toying with venial sin. But then he's going to do something that really is serious. He's going to actually give the secret, and not only give the secret to Delilah, but he's going to give up the secret, which is his covenant faithfulness. And his hair is a demonstration of that. It is a metaphor, in a sense. And she cuts his hair. He loses his strength. And a lot of people, they want to look at this as a simple children's story. You know, what was Samson's strength? Oh, it was his hair. No, it wasn't. Because if it was in high school, I could have whipped all of you. But it was what it stood for, and it stood for the covenant faithfulness. And when you lose covenant faithfulness, you become weak, you become blind, and you become like all the other nations. And we see this even in the book of Revelation, which we're going to get at the end of the year, in that all seven churches, they lost their usefulness in the world. Drama. And they weren't faithful. They weren't faithful. So this is a huge lesson with Samson that you're going to be going through. And I really, really encourage people to take a look at their own life.

A (20:24)

Well, as you said, there's a couple different ways to be tempted to read this. One is God is on trial. And the other is this is about something else or someone else, as opposed to God is not on trial here. And also, this is about me. And this is a. This is like we talked about before, Scripture can be a mirror. It can be that flashlight, spotlight, it can be that sandpaper. That in this. This is one of those cases where it's a mirror where we hold this up and say, okay, I know, I know. Personally, whenever I read the story of Samson and he didn't realize the spirit of God had left him. Him. It's just one of those haunting lines in the chapters describing, he wakes up, you know, and his hair is gone. Samson, the Philistines are here. But he didn't realize the spirit of God had left him. And it's like, oh, my goodness, Lord, I just. I don't ever want that to happen. And that's the. Like that unique. Like you said, the unique piece of the people of Israel is they're not the biggest of the nations, they're not the best, they're not the whatever. But they're chosen. And that's what makes God has chosen to be among them. He's chosen to reveal his heart to them. He chosen to use them to bless the world. And that's what makes them unique. And if we don't as Christians now in this, the age of the church, that God has chosen us not because of our beauty or our power, our wisdom or our strength, but because he loves us and wants us to send expand his blessings to the world. And we have to live like that. Or else, like you said, we're just like everyone else.

B (21:49)

We are. We become just like everybody else. And you know what you were describing just a moment ago? The church has a name for it, and it is very dangerous. And it's called presumption. And that is that I presume that God will be there even if I commit this sin. But there comes a time where it was your last day on earth. It was your last day on earth. You didn't know that, that it was your last day on earth, but that's what happened. And so presumption is a very, very dangerous thing to do. And like you said, can you imagine suddenly when Samson realized. But here's the good news, and I love this. And this is a truth that will go throughout all the rest of the Bible reading for our friends. And that is God is a God of second chances. God is a God of forgiveness. And this is important. And I would just encourage all who are listening, listen, we live in a world today where everything is permissible and nothing is forgivable.

A (22:53)

Right?

B (22:54)

Everything is permissible, but nothing is forgivable. We'll let you do anything, but we're not going to forgive you. And if that was the case with Samson, he would not have renewed his covenant by a demonstration of his hair. And the last thing he did brought down the gods of. Of the Philistines. So I think that's an important thing to remember is that even though we live in a, you know, in a world that permits everything, it's a world that won't forgive anything. And. But God will.

A (23:25)

But God will. And that just as haunting as the line but Samson did not realize the spirit of the Lord had left him, is the promise of the next line after he's. His eyes are gouged out. And after he's. He's there to just grind the mill. It says, but Samson's hair began to grow. And that kind of piece again, that sense of there's promise here that it's not the end of the story yet. And when he prays, lord God, give me the strength once more to defeat the Philistines. Give me the strength to do what you've created me to do. Like you said, there's so much grace, even if there has been presumption, even if there had been sin, but even if the spirit of the Lord left him, but his hair began to grow. And he called upon the Lord, and the Lord answered in a powerful way. That's for us. Again, this is the mirror. And this is the. A microcosm of the good news. And not only microcosm of the story of Israel, but also of our story, hopefully.

B (24:16)

And there's one. One more point as you're reading the Book of Judges that you're going to notice at the very beginning of it and the very end of it, there's going to be one phrase. And that phrase is that every man did what was right in their own eyes. And that's where you land is. If every man does what is right in his own eyes. And that's something that is a challenge for us today, is that we have been given leadership and God has given us leadership in the church. And we have to resist that temptation to say, you know what, I'm an American, I'm going to pull myself up by the bootstraps and I think I know what's best and I think I can make this decision and I'll take it from here. God, that's one thing you don't say to God is I'll take it from here. But that was the attitude of Israel during the period of the Judges. And I mean, you're a priest, you know yourself, you work with people every day. The idea that I can take it from here and I'm going to do what's right in my own eyes, you know exactly where that lands people.

A (25:20)

It doesn't lead to covenant faithfulness and doesn't, doesn't even lead to happiness. There's that sense of and that's what we see. I mean, the Book of Judges, it's one of, it's one of my. More in I'm inspired by the Book of Judges in many ways, but, but mostly because it reveals to me that, okay, this is things can get, things can get worse no matter how bad I'm living in right now realizing and you know, whatever culture, country, nation, history, whatever it is, you read Judges and realize, okay, things can get worse because they're pretty dark through that entire Book of Judges. Yes, God is working in the, in, in the story, but we're also choosing to not be faithful in this story. So he raises up I like how you mentioned that they're not Judge Judy. These judges are. They're more along the lines of like a William Wallace or a Frederick Douglass or a Harriet Tubman in the sense of these people that God chooses to use in order to again, bring his people back to this place of strength. Again, bring his people back to a place of fidelity and faithfulness.

B (26:23)

Exactly. You know, one of the biggest questions, and I'm a predictor here, and that is one of the biggest questions that's going to come out of this is Father Mike Jeff, what about this complete utter obliteration of cities? And what I'm going to say about that is that we do have some help here. And that is that every Thursday at 2pm Eastern time, I'm on the Ascension Catholic Bible Study Facebook page and we answer the difficult questions of the week. And during this period, trust me, we're going to get into this. It's called herem warfare. H E R E M Harem warfare. It is a complete holocaust to God, the wiping out of a city. We're going to take a look at that. Did they do it. Did they not do it? Was there a purpose? Is it justified? So we will look at that and I encourage people to bring their real difficult questions over to the Ascension's Catholic Bible study page, and you can even askjeffcavens and we'll get to some of those questions. But trust me, that's going to come up big time.

A (27:29)

Absolutely. And that's on Facebook, right? That's every Thursday on Facebook. And is that, that's recorded. Then we get. That gets posted later on.

B (27:36)

Right. It's live at 2:00 Eastern, but then we, we post it. Exactly right. And we've. We've already done about 10 of them or nine, something like that, which is

A (27:44)

going to be super helpful for people because again, as you said, this, this chapter, these books, this section, this time period will bring up so many questions. And that's one of them. And so I'm really grateful for you to be there. Jeff. Any. As we conclude this, this episode, any last takeaways as we launch into this next time period?

B (28:03)

Sure. Well, I think that it'd be good for people to take stock of their own heart and the movements of their own heart as Israel is going to go through the period of judges, they're going to go through rocky road of doing everything what's right in their own eyes. And the next period we're going to be entering in is the royal kingdom. And what we're going to see is that Israel is finally going to say, we want a king. And I would just pray that people could, could take stock of the movement of their own heart from feeling alone. No direction, no leadership to thank you, Lord. You have given me leadership. You have given me a direction. May I be faithful to your plan and be faithful to who you are.

A (28:47)

That's awesome. Yeah. This, that again, once again letting this, these stories. Avoiding the temptation of making God on trial and avoiding the temptation of making this be about someone else or some other people. This is not impersonal. This is incredibly, incredibly personal for all of us. Speaking of on this journey, I'm so grateful that you are still with us after all these days, after all these months, you're still journeying through scripture with us. This Bible in Ear podcast. And so please know that I am praying for you. Please be praying for me and also as part of this community. Keep praying for each other with Jeff Cavins. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.