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One word dominated the early days of the Trump administration in the USA. The word is “compromised”. The allegations have been that the Trump campaign may have colluded with the Russians which, if true, means that President Trump, may in some way have been compromised prior to taking power earlier this year. Those who have opposed the American President continue to say he is not fit to be president because of what they see as close dealings with the Russians . We will never know the truth, but the story is a reminder that faithfulness and integrity is important in every walk of life. Yet, we know that all humans beings are tempted to compromise. We are tempted to bend the rules or tolerate sin for personal advantage. This is the compromise that the Bible often speaks. The accommodation of something that we know is wrong! We see this in the life of Israel in Judges as they settled in the promised land after the death of Joshua. Even from the onset of taking possession of the land,...

When Joshua dismissed the people, the people of Israel went each to his inheritance to take possession of the land. And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel. And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110 years. And they buried him within the boundaries of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gaash. And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel . JOSHUA 2:6-10  This wonderful passage inserted in the middle of Judges describes the Joshua generation which served God faithfully. They stands in sharp contrast to the generations that followed who did not know the God of Israel.  The Joshua generation served God by immersing themselves to ...

The house of Joseph also went up against Bethel, and the Lord was with them. And the house of Joseph scouted out Bethel. (Now the name of the city was formerly Luz.) And the spies saw a man coming out of the city, and they said to him, “Please show us the way into the city, and we will deal kindly with you.” And he showed them the way into the city. And they struck the city with the edge of the sword, but they let the man and all his family go. And the man went to the land of the Hittites and built a city and called its name Luz. That is its name to this day. JUDGES 1:22-25  I have been thinking about success recently. What is success? How does it look like? That is partly because of change in personal circumstances. I am now just moved into this new pastoral role, a radical departure from my previous economic role in government. The other reason is that we have been hearing a lot of success from national leaders. Prime Minister Theresa May has vowed to make a success o...

And the LORD was with Judah, and he took possession of the hill country, but he could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain because they had chariots of iron. JUDGES 1:19 At the first reading of this verse, it seems like the author of Judges is suggesting the iron may be too strong for God. In fact his point is totally the opposite. Prior to this incident the author of Judges tells us about the various victories over the Cananites that God gave the people of God, especially of the brutal Adoni-Bezek. God had done this just as He had promised the people after the death of Joshua. So there is no doubt that the God of Israel is omnipotent!

After the death of Joshua, the people of Israel enquired of the Lord, “Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites, to fight against them?” The Lord said, “Judah shall go up; behold, I have given the land into his hand.” And Judah said to Simeon his brother, “Come up with me into the territory allotted to me, that we may fight against the Canaanites. And I likewise will go with you into the territory allotted to you.” So Simeon went with him. Then Judah went up and the Lord gave the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand, and they defeated 10,000 of them at Bezek.  JUDGES 1:1-3 At start of the book of Judges we meet the nation of Israel facing a leadership crisis. Joshua their greater leader after Moses has died. This is a huge problem of course because even though the they have managed to break the back of the Canaanite resistance they not done enough to fully possess the land. The enemy is weakened but they now need to go in and do the dirty work of fu...