The Week in Review (sort of, like thru Tuesday)

Monday night was a challenge. Tuesday night was great. The first school night of the week began and ended with my daughter struggling through a paper on worldviews. She had to give a summary of the views of three figures that dominated the thinking of the 20th century, namely Marx, Freud, and Darwin. I wrestled with trying to help her, giving her a balanced representation of these three without actually writing her paper. But it was tough. Finally at about 11:00 I needed to go to bed. She needed a conclusion. So I told her to write: “But, what do I know, I’m only 16.”

I thought it was a great ending to a so-so paper. However, her teacher did not think so. He was quite upset and threatened to have her re-write the paper. So you can guess who got his behind chewed Tuesday afternoon. But Tuesday night made up for the earlier attack.

At the Porch for our weekly Bible Discussion Group, we attempted to finish off Joshua, putting him to rest with a quick read of the last three chapters. But it was not to be. We started and ended with chapter 22. Part of the reason for the delay was the fact that a few in the group are well versed in their Hebrew and are able to give us translations for the meanings of some of the original names and places. This brought us into discussion about some of the bizarre religious rituals and practices of the Canaanites. Well, one thing led to another, and with only one female among our group of 12, the discussion turned into a laugh-fest full of double entendres and lots of bad guy humor.

But amongst the “fun,” we were struck by the power of this part of the story. Believe it or not, suspicion and misunderstanding reigned on the west side of the Jordan River (and probably both sides.) The eastern two and a half tribes wanted to build something for the kids and grandkids, so that future generations would remember what happened “way back when.” The western 9 and ½ (rounded up to 10) became suspicious of what those other folks were up to and made plans to wipe them out. They thought that those on the other side of the river had resorted back to some nasty Canaanite practices. But fortunately, the west-bankers got the full picture before they wiped out their kin.

So out of our belly laughs and snide comments (or maybe in spite of them) came an encouraging word. We were painted a great picture of an ancient people, “being people,” but reconciling before any heads rolled. I guess in most cases it’s easier to make peace with someone while their head is still getting nourishment from below.

I do love the O.T. (i.e. Hebrew Bible or Torah or Tanach or earlier testament, for my more enlightened friends). It’s not as tame as we like to think.

Tuesday night took me back many years to my days sitting in certain Hebrew and O.T. classes taught by a guy that would get so excited over the great stories. He was an old, tall, lanky fellow that frequently got in trouble for the way he taught these stories and for the comments that he made. His constant immersion in these texts often put him at odds with the powers that be and what was “proper” at the time. But he was great at giving us an appetite for these books that Jesus read.