{"id":7031,"date":"2024-02-07T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-08T00:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=7031"},"modified":"2024-02-04T08:52:57","modified_gmt":"2024-02-04T15:52:57","slug":"no-magic-formula","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=7031","title":{"rendered":"No Magic Formula"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We are easing back into Judges, which contains, <a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=6994\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">as I wrote a few days ago<\/a>, a number of &#8220;cycles:&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Sin<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Servitude (under a foreign power)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Supplication (prayer for deliverance)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Salvation (through a Judge \u2013 the savior)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Serenity (e.g., \u201cThe land had peace for 40 years.\u201d)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Repeating cycles, however, does NOT mean Judges is repetitive. Far from it. The particulars of each cycle are very different. For example, Othniel&#8217;s cycle gets five verses: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Judges+3%3A7-11&amp;version=MSG\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Judges 3.7 &#8211; 11<\/a>. Gideon gets three chapters. Deborah, whom we&#8217;ll look at the next two days, gets a chapter for the battle and a chapter for the song about the battle, both of which feature a lady driving a tent peg through someone&#8217;s head! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For Ehud, Judge #2, we don&#8217;t have any details of the battle, only that Ehud, described as left-handed, killed Eglon, Moab&#8217;s king, in a private meeting:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Ehud approached him\u2014the king was now quite alone in his cool rooftop room\u2014and said, &#8220;I have a word of God for you.&#8221; Eglon stood up from his throne. Ehud reached with his left hand and took his sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king&#8217;s big belly. Not only the blade but the hilt went in. The fat closed in over it so he couldn&#8217;t pull it out. Ehud slipped out by way of the porch and shut and locked the doors of the rooftop room behind him. (Judges 3.20 &#8211; 23, MSG)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The point is, that God rarely works the same way twice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I knew a man who had a profound experience with God while playing the part of a soldier at the foot of the cross at the church&#8217;s passion play. Every year after that he played that same part, expecting the same experience, which never came again.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=4301\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">I observed this principle<\/a> in Paul&#8217;s ministry a couple of years ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Forget about what&#8217;s happened; don&#8217;t keep going over old history. Be alert, be present. I&#8217;m about to do something brand-new. It&#8217;s bursting out! Don&#8217;t you see it? (Isaiah 43.18 &#8211; 19, MSG)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We are easing back into Judges, which contains, as I wrote a few days ago, a number of &#8220;cycles:&#8221; Repeating cycles, however, does NOT mean Judges is repetitive. Far from it. The particulars of each cycle are very different. For example, Othniel&#8217;s cycle gets five verses: Judges 3.7 &#8211; 11. Gideon gets three chapters. Deborah, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=7031\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">No Magic Formula<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8X9bo-1Pp","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7031"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7036,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7031\/revisions\/7036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}