When people read the Bible, they may be surprised to find shocking stories of wickedness mixed with stories of great faith, sometimes in the very same people. In other words, it contains stories of people like us. Judges reports on the chaotic situation in Israel after the death of Joshua during which a series of deliverers rescued God’s people time and time again from self-inflicted problems. At the end of the book, things spiraled out of control, but this failure reveals the main point of the book. In the end, the judges could not have lasting success but were signposts pointing forward to the answer to their failures and ours.
Four short parables point to the surpassing value of the kingdom of God and the need to find it now.
It is hard to imagine what the world would be like without Saul of Tarsus (the apostle Paul), but it would have been harder...
There is a stubborn fact of history that no one has been able to disprove, although many have tried. Jesus’ tomb was empty, and...