1 Samuel 8: Faithful Leadership

But the people refused to listen to Samuel. "No!" they said. "We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles."

Times of crisis require exceptional leadership. Samuel ruled during a difficult transition. The last judge in Israel, Eli, had failed, and Philistine armies were pressing in. With everything in flux, the Israelites needed someone worthy of their trust. Samuel was the leader for the times. He oversaw the change from a loose tribal federation to a monarchy. He anointed Israel's first two kings, wrote down the rules kings were to live by and then deposed one king, Saul, who did not measure up. Samuel ended his long career without a single black mark on his record, and the entire country mourned his death.

Samuel also showed remarkable versatility. A lifelong judge, he settled disputes in a regular circuit of Israelite towns. He gained fame as a prophet, alert to hear God's word and quick to proclaim it clearly-especially when God entrusted him with key information about the future. Finally, he functioned as priest, presenting sacrifices and prayers on behalf of God's people. He considered prayer one of his basic duties as a leader.

Like any good leader, Samuel sometimes had to bring bad news. When he was just a boy, her heard God's message of judgment against his foster father, Eli. Samuel also gave stern warnings about a king's potential abuses of power, abuse he later had to denounce in Saul. Yet the nation remembered him more for his positive contributions. Taking over the helm when the nation was near disaster, Samuel steered the course faithfully until he could deliver leadership to David, a young man whom would become Israel's greatest king.

Life Question: What type of leader do you respect most? What qualities does he or she reflect?

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Just as Eli provided parental guidance to Samuel at a very young age, I’m going to go with couples who have opened their homes to children and provided foster care for kids who have endured an abusive life. I personally have gotten to know a couple of different folks at church who have shown this kind of Christian compassion for needy children, and I truly can’t think of a finer example of emulating Christ’s love than what foster parents do for these kids.

1 Samuel 3: You Called Me?

See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle.

By the time of the judges, most of God's promises to the Israelites have already been fulfilled, including the promise that they would possess their own land. Even so, something is clearly lacking. No one would begin to call this crazy quilt of tribal territories a unified "nation." In fact, throughout the era of the judges, the Israelites have fought each other as often as they have fought their hostile neighbors.

As 1 Samuel opens, their perennial enemies, the Philistines, are exploiting the Israelites' disunity, pushing ever deeper into their territory. Israel's military weakness leads to one of the darkest days of Old Testament history, a time when the Philistines capture the sacred ark of the covenant in chapter 4. Some may wonder whether God has abandoned Israel.

The early part of 1 Samuel relates, though, how God directly steps in, as he did with Abraham and Moses, and calls out a new leader. While still a boy, Samuel hears God speak. He delivers God's message, even though it involves a rebuke for Eli, the man who has raised him from childhood. Ultimately, Samuel serves the entire nation as a transitional leader in the period between the judges and the kings. A priest by training, he leads the nation's worship. When the need arises, he even functions as a military general, spearheading a victorious recapture of disputed territories.

Finally, under God's direction, Samuel anoints Israel's first two kings. By performing these varied roles, Samuel leaves an important legacy: He manages to unite the tribes for the first time in a century. Under his leadership, Israel comes to the brink of nationhood. God has not forgotten the covenant after all.

Life Question: Have you ever felt "called" by God for a certain task? How have you responded?

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In today's society where broken families are sadly becoming the norm, I really think God has called me to be a solid dad for my three kids. I'm definitely still a work in progress, but there really is an awesome responsibility in raising your kids in a world where immorality is rampant and more and more folks are distancing themselves from God and His church. But, the perks to this gig are extraordinary...each morning that they wake from sleep brings a whole new exciting episode to my life.

The Book of Ruth: A Rare Bond of Love

Where you will go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God...May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.

During a severe famine, things got so bad in Canaan that Naomi's Israelite family migrates into enemy territory to survive. There, her two sons marry local pagan women and settle down. Years later, both of her sons and her husband die. With no man to rely on, the women's lives were at risk in those rough times. No one else would come to their defense. Naomi then decides to return to the land of her birth. Taking a big risk by immigrating to a land where the people may treat her as a despised foreigner, Ruth, the daughter in law, insists on returning with Naomi to the land of the Israelites and somewhere along the way, converts to the worship of the true God.

In fact, behind the story of Ruth looms the invisible helper- God. He didn't intervene in the events, so far as the story tells, but nobody in Ruth doubted that life proceeded under God's direction. It was the Lord by whom Ruth swore when declaring her love to Naomi and the Lord whom Naomi credited for bringing Ruth to Boaz's field (2:20). God's law brought Boaz and Ruth into marriage. Finally, the Lord gave them a son, in whom mother, father, and grandmother found deep satisfaction. Despite being a member of the despised Moabites- staunch enemies of Israel- God not only accepted Ruth into his family but also used her to produce Israel's greatest king. Ruth's great-grandson turned out to be David.

Ruth's life make a fascinating story in itself, but it has a much larger significance. She contradicts a common assumption about the God of the Old Testament- that only members of one special tribe could be his chosen people. Ruth was fully accepted among God's people because she chose to follow the true God, despite her foreign background. God's love and grace is an open invitation to anyone who chooses to accept him.

Life Question: Do you find it hard to accept and admire those who come from outside your group? What "qualifications" do you set up?

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I'd like to think that one of my strengths is to initiate new friendships. I try not to cling to any pre-conceived notions about anyone. I've always believed that God sends you people throughout the course of your life for a very specific reason, and it would be rather foolish on my part to close the door on an individual because he or she didn't meet some kind of rigid "floor-plan" that I've concocted...my plan isn't always God's plan.

Judges 20: Hanging by a Thread

In those days, Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.

A times comes when you can no longer blame your problems on other people. So it is at the end of Judges. Foreign enemies are no longer in view: The enemy is Israel itself.

Pointless and violent, these last five chapters begin with a son stealing from his mother and end with parents agreeing to let their daughters be kidnapped. In between are homosexual and heterosexual gang rapes, murder, idolatry, armed robbery, and mass slaughter. No enemy does all this: Israelites do it to each other. Clearly the exalted nation of Israel, God's chosen people, has lost all sense of direction.

Everyone did as he saw fit may not sound very negative in our era, which places high value on individualism and personal freedom. But God prizes something more: unity. He wants his people united in love for him and each other. God's law had bound his people to a common worship in the tabernacle and to a common standard of caring for each other. For this the Israelites adopted a do-as-you-please religion and a fractured society, where each family or group fought for its own rights alone.

By the end of Judges, Israelites are reduced to fighting themselves. They have adopted their enemies' customs. They worship idols. The are sexually immoral. They lack respect for parents. They cannot remember the pattern of life God had set out. It is hard to say, by the end of Judges, why God should save Israel from its enemies. It is hard to say whether Israelites are the least bit different from their enemies. Israel has become, in fact, its own worst enemy.

Only one glimmer of hope appears: the Israelites' shock at the Benjamites' gang rape. They can still get together to punish such outrages, and they still consult the Lord about them. But they are a far cry from the hopeful people Joshua had led into the promised land.

Life Question: Can you think of an example where we- as God's people-are still fighting/ bickering amongst ourselves, instead of placing God's desires first?

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Well, a recent statement by Pope Benedict in a document called Dominus Iesus was released last week contending that "all religions (except Roman Catholic) are either defective or not true churches, and Catholicism provides the only true path to salvation." I'm still shaking my head on this one. It would seem to me that THE Christian Church should band together to preach the gospel and emulate Christ instead of getting so enthralled with the different buildings and denominations.

Judges 16: An Ill-Advised Haircut

O God, please strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.

The most famous of all the judges makes an appearance toward the end of the book, and the Bible devotes four chapters to the soap opera-like events of his life. If Gideon shows how God can use a person with limited potential (chapter 7), then Samson illustrates just the opposite, a person with enormous potential who squanders its.

When Samson enters the picture, the Israelites are once again suffering under foreign domination. The Bible makes clear that God has an important mission in store for Samson and wants him specially set apart as a leader. Indeed Samson is blessed with supernatural gifts. When the Spirit of the Lord comes upon him, he can tackle a lion or single-handedly rout an entire army. Any yet, as the stories from his youth reveal, Samson wields that strength in ways more befitting a juvenile delinquent than a spiritual leader.

Like any rebellious teenager, Samson selects for his wife the kind of woman sure to cause his parents- and God- the most grief. When that marriage barely survives a week, he next takes up with a Philistine prostitute. This chapter describes how he stupidly forfeits his great strength in a dalliance with a third woman, the seductive Delilah.

Samson's story is like a morality play. No one in the world could match his physical strength; just about anyone could match his moral strength. His moral lapses would seem almost incomprehensible were they not repeated by spiritual leaders in almost every generation. Toward the end of Samson's life, it appears that the pagans and their gods have soundly defeated the God of the Israelites. But Samson- and God- have one last surprise for the Philistine oppressors...Then he pushed with all his might, and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it.

Life Question: In what areas of your life are you living up to your potential? In what areas are you falling short?

I'm slowly but surely putting more and more time into my spiritual life. For too many years, I simply went through the motions of my faith, but now I am trying to slow down and live my life with meaning and a sincere effort to strengthen my relationship with Christ.

Judges 14: What Might Have Been

As they approached the vineyards of Timnah, suddenly a young lion came roaring toward him. The Spirit of the Lord came upon him in power so that he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat.

When you think of what God meant Samson to be, his life appears particularly tragic. Israel desperately needed a strong, confident leader, for the Philistines were moving in as masters, and many Israelites were willing to let them. God intended Samson for great things. Of all the judges, only Samson was announced by an angel before he was born (13:3) He was assigned to that special class of people known as Nazirites (described in Numbers 6), whose lives were specially devoted to God. Nazirites never drank wine, went near a dead body, or cut their hair. Unfortunately, Samson never lived up to his promise.

The first sign of trouble for Samson is seen at the beginning of chapter 14. Timnah was only four miles across the valley from Samson's hometown. Apparently, the Philistines and Israelites moved freely back and forth, and not all Israelites opposed the Philistines (15:11). Samson, making the short stroll, was attracted to a young Philistine woman. His lack of concern for differences of religion and his lack of submission to his parents were ominous signs pointing toward Samson's future troubles.

Despite all of Samson's weaknesses, though, God used him. He is mentioned later on in Hebrews 11:32 as a hero of faith along with Gideon, Barak, and Jephthah, all from Judges. Barely conscious of what it meant to live for God, and given to fits of lust and temper, Samson still had great physical strength, which came supernaturally from God. With it, he pushed back the Philistines- more by accident than by intention- and kept Israel intact.

Life Question: Samson's parents must have struggled mightily with their son's decision to marry a young girl from outside of their faith. How would you react if thrown into this same type of situation today?

I've often thought about what I would do or say if one of my kids decided to marry someday a person who is not a believer...or God forbid, witness one of my own kids leave the Christian faith. This would be tough. I can say with absolute certainty that I would never ostracize my children from my life, but how do you find peace in your life when a loved one has chosen not to follow in Christ's footsteps? I guess as a parent all you can do is to share your faith with your kids during their impressionable years, and pray that God will always remain in their lives and steer them towards a healthy relationship with his Son. That's my solemn prayer for Marie, Josh, and Sarah.

Judges 7: Against All Odds

In order that Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her, announce now to the people, "Anyone who trembles with fear may turn back."

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Ignoring Joshua's orders to clear the land, the Israelites instead settle in among its pagan occupants and soon start acting like them. They are suffering from a leadership crisis of huge dimensions. For 80 years they followed two outstanding leaders- Moses and Joshua- who now prove impossible to replace. When the 12 tribes splinter apart and retreat into separate territories, God turns to more regional leaders called judges.

Gideon, whose family and village have regressed and begun to worship the pagan god Baal, has absolutely no plans for heroics until the angel of the Lord comes to him with a battle commission. Even in the face of God's clear direction, Gideon demands repeated signs from the angel that God truly has spoken and chosen him to lead his people. God, though, accepts Gideon's halfhearted faith, gives him confirmation that he seeks, and eventually molds him into a courageous leader.

When the time comes for Gideon to strike a decisive blow for the Israelites, God gives instructions that would daunt a seasoned general, much less an inexperienced flawed leader like Gideon. Following orders, Gideon reduces the size of his army from 32,000 men to a pitiful 300 men. If an army so outnumbered can prevail, the against-all-odds victory will prove beyond doubt that God is in charge and worthy of their trust. Knowing the young Israelite's potential, God patiently works to bring Gideon to the point of courage by encouraging him, directing him and, ultimately, transforming him. Virtually overnight, Gideon becomes a strong and decisive general. Using noise and lights as scare tactics, his small band scatters the enemy, the Midianites, and ushers in an era of freedom.

Life Question: Is God using you in any unlikely ways, considering your background and abilities?

I began sponsoring a little boy (Micheal Chisambi who lives in Zambia, Africa) about 1 1/2 years ago. I stumbled upon the Christian Children's Fund on the web, and basically selected the little guy from what seemed to be an uncountable number of applicants. It was such an uncomfortable feeling attempting to choose a person that you could have the opportunity to better their quality of life. After scrolling through numerous pages, I returned to the home page and chose the first little guy who was 4- the age of my Josh at the time. Anyway, I write this because I shamefully have lived so much of my life indifferent to the fact that I have been so incredibly blessed, and yet so many people in the world struggle for simple survival. I can't tell you how thrilled I was when I received my first letter from Micheal's family, and we now correspond at least 6-8 times a year. I really look at this experience as a wake up call from God in trying to make me a more compassionate person.