THE LORD SPOKE (April 16)

Daily Reflections from Scripture:

Old Testament: Judges 20-21

One tribe was nearly wiped out. Benjamin dropped from 26,700 swordsmen to 600 in a few days’ time before the executioner’s hand was stayed.

The crime had been heinous. Gibeah deserved a severe punishment. The tribal support that Benjamin gave them was surprising but the Israelites were careful to seek counsel from the Lord for this. Even so, their original number of 400,000 was twice hacked down by a total of 10% (Judg. 20:21,25). It would appear that everyone had some lessons to learn through this experience.

When the dust settled, 600 Benjamites were sitting on a rock just northeast of the Central Benjamin Plateau. They sat there for four months (Judg. 20:47). What was left of their town and possessions was thoroughly sacked and burned. A once mighty tribe was reduced to bare bones and Israel “grieved for their brothers, the Benjamites” (Judg. 21:6).

“The Lord had made a gap in the tribes of Israel” (Judg. 21:15). It wouldn’t be long before He began to fill it in a beautiful way. The book closes with “in those days Israel had no king” (Judg. 21:25), but that was soon to change. God began to fill that gap by choosing Israel’s first king from the tribe of Benjamin.

Saul was “an impressive young man without equal among the Israelites” (I Sam. 9:2) when God singled him out to be Israel’s first king. Enjoying the support and counsel of Samuel, he got off to a good start. His end was less impressive.

But another Benjamite who started very badly ended up very good! Saul, who went on to become the great Apostle Paul, was proud to be of the tribe of Benjamin (Rom. 11:1; Phil. 3:6). How impoverished we’d all be if the tribe of Benjamin had been wiped out completely on that day clear back in the time of the judges. God’s sovereign purposes were at work over 1000 years earlier. The gospel finally arrived at our own doorstep by means of a slender thread of God’s marvelous grace.


New Testament: Acts 17

Paul made a practice of it. At Thessalonica “he reasoned with them from the Scriptures” (Acts 17:2). From the biblical text he demonstrated that...

1. the Messiah had to suffer to the point of death
2. the Messiah would then rise from the dead
3. Jesus did this and, therefore, is the Messiah

It brought conversion. “Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks, and not a few prominent women” (Acts 17:4, c.f. 17:12). In short order, some of these people were persecuted for their faith but held strong.

Yet the Bereans were exalted as being “of more noble character than the Thessalonians” (Acts 17:11a). Why? What was the difference? Their’s was the next town visited by Paul and, presumably, received the same message and manner of delivery. But the difference was that the Bereans “received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts 17:11b).

Thomas Brooks, one of the Puritans, put it this way: Take no truth upon trust, but all upon trial. It was the glory of [the Bereans] that they would not trust Paul himself.

Paul’s message to the Athenians on the Areopagus was notably different from his preaching in the Jewish synagogues. Nevertheless, he followed the argument of the Old Testament:

1. God is the Creator of All (Past) - vs. 24-26
2. God is the Sustainer of All (Present) - vs. 27-29
3. God will be the Judge of All (Future) - vs. 30-31

Paul concluded with the same message he’d been using in the synagogues - the final judgment will come by Jesus, “the man [God] has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:31). The resurrection of Jesus was and is the capstone of all revelation and reason. Apart from that historical fact there is no ultimate truth, no message from God, and no hope of salvation.