Readers Guide: “The Word for Today” Monday, October 22, 2012 Read – Joshua 6 & Judges 2:6-33 The only story of the giving of the land by God that we are going to read is the familiar story of the battle of Jericho. The story is well known by most of us. In many ways the telling of the story sounds more like a ritual re-enactment of an event than the event itself. In some ways there really isn’t a battle at all – God simply gives the city into the hands of the people. The point of telling the story in this way is obvious. The point is that the giving of the land was God’s gift and not the result of human achievement. The people did not conquer the land – God gave it to them. The rest of the stories of the giving of the land are similar and are very worthy of reading – we just don’t have time to look at everything. The last 12 chapters of Joshua are more of those chapters that are likely to bog us down as readers. The dividing of the land among the tribes is not really very interesting reading so we can let them go. The second half of our reading today comes from the book of Judges. Actually the book of Judges is wonderful reading for the most part. I always tell confirmation students that if they want to read some scandalous stories Judges is a good place to turn. But, again time prevents reading these interesting stories. If we were to take the time – and you surely may do that if you are able – what we would discover is that the story follows a pattern. God’s people forget about God and wind up being ruled but outsiders. Those people cry out to God for a deliverer. God sends them a Judge – really more of a war hero – who brings the delivery the people long for. And the people know a time of peace only to fall back into the pattern all over again. That is the message of chapter 2 – a cycle in four parts. Perhaps one of the values of this chapter and of the story of the Judges is that our life so often follows the same pattern. One wonders if human beings will ever learn.