The devastating stories of the Judges 19 woman, and the host's virgin daughter, the kidnapped virgins of Gilead Jabesh, and pounced on Virgins of Shiloh!

The devastating stories of the Judges 19 woman, and the host's virgin daughter, the kidnapped virgins of Gilead Jabesh, and, the pounced-on Virgins of Shiloh in chapter 21! 

I completed listening to the book of Judges last month. Years back we used to read aloud the entire Bible as a family for over ten years, and this unsettling tale was tough to get through! Even after reading the Bible every year for almost 25 years, I still find the scenes in Judges chapters 19 to 21 unsettling and disturbing —where the Levite's "concubine" was brutally raped while the host's virgin daughter escaped the abuse by thin threads yet must have felt horrified all night—. I also find the women of Gilead Jabesh in Chapter 21 and the girls of Shiloh who were abducted in Chapter 22 unsettling. These stories depict a slaughter of crimes that will chill your spine. The Levite's concubine's narrative appears different in different translations of the Bible in the Judges chapter 19:2 According to the message version, "But she quarreled with him and left, returning to her father’s house in Bethlehem in Judah. She was there four months." 

NLT: She became angry with him...." NASB says she found him to be repugnant (LOL)! NRSV, "She became angry with him..."

KJV says, "And his concubine played the whore against him, and went away from him" NKJV is pretty much the same. ESV, NIV, and Bearean versions say "She was unfaithful to him."

Narration matters! Let us dig deeper. Why would he pursue her to get her back if she had betrayed him? Why was she upset with him? We don't know a lot of information about this Levite. The fact that he intends to "win her back" suggests that the narrative is only partial. 

Regretfully, the girl's father and the Levite have the conversations and insist on extended hospitality. The girl's voice has not been captured, if she could express her desire to return with the Levite or not!

He leads her through a boisterous area. Although the storming men from the village desire the Levite, the host greets them warmly, and then tragically, the host offers the Levite's concubine and his own virgin daughter and requests to leave the Levite alone. Have you studied that? V24 says, "Look, my virgin daughter and his concubine are here. I’ll bring them out for you. Abuse them if you must, but don’t do anything so senselessly vile to this man.” Omg!!!! who in their right mind can fathom this? Interesting they do not offer the man who accompanied the Levite and the concubine! 

"So the man took his concubine and brought her forth unto them, and they knew her and abused her all the night until the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her go. 26 Then came the woman in the dawning of the day and fell down at the door of the man's house where her lord was, till it was light."

I am not sure if this was revenge that the Levite threw her to be gang-raped and then afterward cut her body into 12 pieces and sent them to all the tribes of Israel, describing himself as a victim. Whoa! Talk about his anger, his entitlement, and his brutality! That clarifies the reason for her initial leaving.

Second, as much as we feel for the concubine being gang r@ped all night, can you imagine the poor virgin daughter in the house, her mental state and thought process.

We need to lament these women's pain, trauma, and death. 

Chapter 20 is about massacre after massacre.

Chapter 21^st is about abducting virgin girls! After the massacre now they needed virgin girls for marriage to the abusive men that they went to war with! They would not give their daughters because of the oath they took against them but now see how they will find girls for these! So, they send a command!!!!! “Kill everyone of Jabesh Gilead, including women and children. These are your instructions: Every man and woman who has had sexual intercourse you must kill. But keep the virgins alive.” And that’s what they did. "And they found four hundred virgins among those who lived in Jabesh Gilead; they had never had sexual intercourse with a man. And they brought them to the camp at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan" (v.10-12). V 14 "But even then, there weren’t enough for all the men." 

Now the pouncing and preying on more virgin girls, who had gone for a festival!

"Then they said, “There is that festival of God held every year in Shiloh. It’s north of Bethel, just east of the main road that goes up from Bethel to Shechem and a little south of Lebonah.” So they told the Benjaminites, “Go and hide in the vineyards. Stay alert—when you see the Shiloh girls come out to dance the dances, run out of the vineyards, grab one of the Shiloh girls for your wife, and then hightail it back to the country of Benjamin. When their fathers or brothers come to lay charges against us, we’ll tell them, ‘We did them a favor. After all, we didn’t go to war and kill to get wives for men. And it wasn’t as if you were in on it by giving consent. But if you keep this up, you will incur blame.’” And that’s what the Benjaminites did: They carried off girls from the dance, wives enough for their number, got away, and went home to their inheritance. They rebuilt their towns and settled down. From there the People of Israel dispersed, each man heading back to his own tribe and clan, each to his own plot of land. At that time there was no king in Israel. People did whatever they felt like doing"(Judges 21:19-25). 

These are narratives of the horrible acts of violation, animosity, anger, revenge, entitlement, and abuse. These are not to be emulated but countered and denounced! Yet I have witnessed different reactions to this story. Some shiver like I do while reading it each time. Others remind me of the verse that says, in those days there was no king in Israel and everyone did what seemed right to them. Yet, few others especially from the patriarchal school of thought continue to blame the woman saying, "But she was unfaithful to him." Whoah, wait a minute, how about her running away from him due to his anger! She was upset with him because of his mistreatment, and anger. And she did leave! yet her fate is so horrific. You can be certain that women in such patriarchal households continue to be belittled and abused in different ways. 

The good news of the gospel is to continue to contend for respect, mutuality, and non-violent peaceful existence, including other species to live in harmony. No dominating, no violating, no overpowering but to reach out and heal. Jesus' inaugural speech in Luke, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me. to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor”(Luke4:18-19) spells it clearly! 

May we be instruments of healing. 

Kalpana

Parenting story of a good farmer....

This will warm your heart as it did ours when we heard this short story from a pastor at church here in our little local neighborhood.  He was speaking on "what will it profit if you gain the whole world but lose your soul?" In addition to that he shared this story.

The story is of a farmer who was raising 2 fine boys. The boys were working with Daddy during the harvest season. At harvest, folks usually hired the harvest croppers to do the work to ease up the load as it is huge. Harvest croppers go from fields to fields doing the work for different farmers.

Some harvesters were hired by this dear good farmer; as the day progressed, Dad heard the harvest workers use some foul language and share dirty jokes amongst themselves. He warned and told them to put a stop to that; once, and twice; he explained to harvesters that there were young boys of his, also working and assisting and he did not want the boys to be influenced by the lose talks and blue jokes. The harvesters did not pay attention. On the 3rd confrontation, in reply the 'offended' foul mouthed workers threatened the farmer with a cocky attitude that they will leave and if they left, he will lose his precious crop, as there will be no one to assist. Resolute Dad replied,"I would rather lose the crop than lose my boys!"

Bravo! brave and courageous! we need more parents like this today to stand up for kids; to teach right things and even though the world seems saturated with evil words, actions and thoughts, we can choose to shield and protect our kids at the cost of anything; even if it means we will lose precious material possessions! Nothing is more worth than fighting for our children's character building!

You will hear many well meaning well-wishers even try and correct you stating that you are 'over reacting' or even  'rebuke' you for standing up saying, "Its part of the 'world' our children need to be exposed to!"  This is a lie and we do not need to buy into it. Regardless of what was going on in Noah's world, as a step of obedience, he still chose to continue building the ark for 100 years in which he eventually ended up protecting his children and family; because he chose to obey God and his wife support him in that. Even in New Testament we see the 4 virgin daughters of Philip, prophesying...Acts 21:9 "And the same man had four daughters, virgins, which did prophesy."

God has mandated us to train and teach our children, with a promise saying, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." (Proverbs 22:6) We can choose to be different and teach the good godly Christlike values to our children. I do not believe we need to be at ease allowing our children to face compromising situations, in order to think they need to be rough to face the rough world. I believe they need to be tough to face the rough world! And we also just don't want to settle for our kids to be good only, we want them to be godly! Jesus calls us for that solid integrity deep within - the righteousness that exceeds more than the Pharisses' righteousness. Even when no one is watching or even when it is not mandated, our children will do the right thing as God would do if he were in that situation. That is our role and that is one of the things I believe we will be accountable to God for!  Happy parenting!

©copyrighted by Kalpana Christian Sharma (Mrs.)B.A. I.T.C
(the good farmer's story was told in a small umc church in Lansing, IL on Nov 13th 2011) and The Bible verses taken from online parallel bible - KJV Cambridge Ed.)

lost?

a friend recently wrote to me that 'I feel lost". While writing back, I sensed as i prayed and wrote back, "Being lost is a good place to be in, because Jesus can then find you; take time to find Jesus also in that state" The bible says in Isaiah, "Call on the Lord, while he may be found" (Isa55:6)/KJV
(copy right - Kalpana Christian-Sharma. Mrs. (KC)

confident, yet silent....

silence due to indecision is different than being decisive yet choosing to be silent, that is confidence! -k

copyrighted...kalpna chrsitian sharma

Reading and learning from the weak Fathers' roles in the old times

I have been reading the book of 1st Samuel in the Bible and its interesting to note that Eli the priest was a godly man but he failed in his role as a diciplining father. Twice God sends a message, 1st that 'he honored his sons more than God and did not rebuke them' and 2nd time He talks to young Samuel that 'Eli knew the problem and failed to restrain his sons.'

His sons were perverting justice and did not walk in the ways of the LORD. Even though just few verses before, we see that Eli is 'gently rebuking' the sons, it does not work by now as the Lord has decided to put an end to the roles Eli's family will be playing. His family is rejected and severe punishment from the Lord fell on Eli's household of male dying in the prime of life; and if they survived they would be not straight forward.

More interesting thing is that inspite of such environment, Samuel (the handed over child) turns out to be godly. He is not influenced by Eli's grown up sons. Samuel seemed to have followed in Eli's foot steps in terms of godliness but interestingly enough, Samuel also seemed to have followed Eli's route when it came to being in a fatherly role. Samuel's sons also did not walk in the ways of the LORD and they too perverted justice, to an extent that people came and asked for a king, as Samuel was now getting old and his sons were not forthright. (the infrastructure of the society was going to change drastically at that time for this ethnic group of people)

Samuel annoints Saul as the 1st king of Israel as per God's instruction. Saul is ordained as a king; a king who also does not heed to authorities. He was neither a good king nor a good father.

later, David too, annointed by Samuel, happens to be a godly man in many areas of his life, who started out well, but when it came to his fatherly role, he failed terribly. His daughter suffered incest at the hand of a lust driven step brother and David did nothing. His sons were not living right and David is not able to restrain them nor discipline them.

As thankful as we are for Proverbs, Song of songs, and Eccleciastes books, Solomon too failed to train and teach his son/s(!) the godly ways and the story goes on. Rest of the kings and prophets are a long story we still need to dig into.

This is one of the reasons, i continue to admire the parents of John the Baptist and also Mary and Joseph.
no1. This is God's story and God allows us to live for him. 2. When we sin, we are responsible for the sins we commit. 3. We will still be judged by God for our parental role and are accountable to God who puts children in our care. 4. It is important that we teach, train up, discipline the next generation and impart godly values. 5. introspect and see where do we fail as parents? what are we compromising, and what inauthenticity our children see in us that they do not want to follow the Lord?  6. humble ourselves before God and ask his help like samson's parents did, in how are we to raise these children? though samson didnt turn out to be moral in his living, God used his life to bring about the purposes that He had in mind. How blessed samson's life would have been had he chosen to live morally above his own weak human desires and learnt self control? but that is samson's choice. Parents job today is more challenging and we need to take it seriously. We must honor God more than other things and people and if and when required, rebuke, train and teach our kids godly ways despite of what the culture tries to imply, impose, mock and make us to do. Jesus said, "if you honor others, even your own family more than me, you are not worthy of me" even when this is used so many times out of context to suit the leaving of children and famliies to make mission field another career opportunity at times, i see this verse more so in line with what God told Eli, that we are not to honor our children or parents or spouses or other family members more than God, that means, when they are not walking in God's ways, or when they dont pursue righteousness, we are not to enable them in the name of 'loving' and accepting' while abusing 'grace'. Love means discipline, correct, instruct, admonish, nurture.
 
Let us encourage one another to live godly lives and be good role models. Given in our care the lives of these precious souls, teaching the word of truth, let us be good role models. 
 
Copyrights by Kalpana Christian Sharma (Mrs.)

samson and lessons from his life

I have been reading thru the book of Judges and am on 13 to 16 chapters on the birth of Samson. oh my! what can i say. to start with, his father and mom's attitude and humility warmed my heart. Their childlessness and then when she comes to know that she will have conceive a child, with humility to ask the angel of the Lord, how are we to raise this child? hum....what a question, if every parent who is expecting a child were to take this seriously what kind of parents shall we all be?

I have heard and seen many parents over the years want to make their children what they want or would dictate in no uncertain terms what they want their children to do but we see a different picture here, the parents are humble and wanting to know how the Lord wants them to raise this child?

samson was to begin delivering his people from the hands of the philistines. His mother was to be careful in her eating and drinking habits and samson's hair was not to be cut at all as he was going to be set apart for the LORD right from his birth. that is where his strength was going to be for God's glory and for God's purposes.

It is sad to see from samson's poor choices and lusting after women and also from who were not really a marriage material girls that one can feel disheartened as to where did the parents go wrong. Did they let him learn to brag along the way? perhaps? is it possible that in some areas he was not corrected being the only child, did they spoil him in some ways? he was rude at times and at times seemed over confident. i am tempted to think the parents were perhaps not wrong, and did their part but whichever way, it was samson's poor choices.

At times Samson also fails to wait on the Lord and goes on his own sinful ways. the result is evident. lets look at the 1st woman that he wanted to marry. he demands of his parents that 'go get that woman to be my wife' and even when his parents are rebuking him, he is adamant and not listening to their advice. The bible tells us that they didnot know that this was from the Lord who was waiting for: verse4 (His parents did not know that this was from the LORD, who was seeking an occasion to confront the Philistines; for at that time they were ruling over Israel.)

if we go thru the story we see that there is no holy covenanted marriage involved. while samson wants to get a wife, the Lord wants to confront philistines using this occasion. Parents also dont want this marriage to take place. So, who wins? of course the LORD and parents in some way.

because, the girl is siding with her own people due to fear; coxing him every day so to reveal the mystery of his riddle, keeps nagging him and manipulating. it was interesting to read that for 7 days of her own wedding feast, she was crying every day and made life miserable, that of hers and that of samson. what a wedding preparation! no blessing of the Lord is seen. also, samson does not seem to be trusting these women because at 1st he is refusing to tell her the answer to the riddle, and says to her, “I haven’t even explained it to my father or mother,” he replied, “so why should I explain it to you?”

neither samson nor the woman seem to be prepared for a holy marriage institution and is it any wonder no marriage takes place? it was not meant to be!

after he explains the riddles she goes and tells her people and samson now knows. he calls her, his heifer! and strikes 30 men down. He is angry and as a result, the father decides to give the daughter as a wife to his friend.

Samson returns with a hope to see 'his wife' and the father explains she is given away. now father is offering the younger more attractive girl. but again marriage is not in the view and samson retaliates with burning the farms and in return the philistines are burning the father and the daughter. Now Samson's anger is even fierce and he kills them as well as other 1000 of them. God's purposes stand firm thru and thru whether his marriage plans are working out or not.

The bible says honor your father and your mother that it may go well with you and that you will live long in the land. neither of this happens in samson's case, 1st because God is in control and second, samson chose not to honor the parents as we read.

20 years samson rules. then we read that he goes to a prostitute to spend a night with her. hum! samson is weak but God is using this opportunity and allows samson to destroy some more of the enemies.

now the real trouble comes in. there is delilah, with whom samson falls in love. the fall of samson's life has started. This woman is no different than the prostitute and no different than the 1st philistine woman that he wanted to marry. She too is siding with her people and betraying samson over and over again. the same game is played by delilah and over and over again, she is using the same words and samson is playing the game. manipulations are seen day in and day out and nagging is on and we see finally samson gives in. he is so fallen that he is not able to rise above to see the reality. as a result he reveals the secret and he is now betrayed thoroughly not only that he is actually now ruthlessly blind, without hair and thus without strength, but the worse thing is he is without the Lord. The Spirit of the Lord has now left him. That is worse state for anyone.

Once a strong man now he is in shackles grinding grains not to forget the mockery he had to face. yet we see, God being merciful and his hair begins to grow. i bet samson is now repentant. we read samson is now praying the Lord's will, to ask for strength to destroy the enemies with one blow, infact he is now willing to die and not live, he really has been thru a lot of thinking while in shackles and grinding without eyes. Does God answer? of course, this prayer is in line with his will, his initial will that was foretold to his parents before his birth.

The Bible says he killed more people when he died than when he was alive. again, it was not samson's strength but God's strength. In his weakness, God used him to do a greater work. if only samson had chosen to obey the Lord and his parents thru and thru, his life would have been a blessed one.

but there are lessons also for us to learn as well. 1. let us ask the Lord how are we to raise our kids and raise them well in every area of their lives. 2nd we must realize that our talents and gifts are not for our own selfish use. 3rd, when we mess with our lives, we will suffer as a result of our poor choices but God's purposes still stand and come thru. 4th, for the young people who develop liking for opposite gender, ask, is it God's will for marriage? is there a marriage blessed by God, or does God want me to learn what am i here for in this to accomplish His divine will, is this an opportunity for me to let God be glorified or am i going to insist my own way? am i a blessing? 5th, once beaten twice! be careful! ask the Lord to protect you from the manipulative people who will side with your enemies and betray you.(its the people we love that betray our faith) 6th, commit to living a holy and pure lives. 7th, when we mess up, we will suffer but when we turn around and cry out, God truly hears us and in our weakness he gives us victory, bigger than when we were too much full of ourselves. 8th, we must humble and submit to God. 9. every temptation is an opportunity to say no to it and overcome with God's help. 10. we must remember we are here to do God's work as per His divine will and anytime our soul can be required of us, how shall we answer him, the way we lived?

(the Bible verses are taken from the NIV Bible.)

Copyrighted © by kalpana christian sharma (mrs.)

death, life and every moment

Death and life are in God's hands and so is every moment of our lives. He controls the very breath we breathe as per His divine will. Instead of God at our bidding, its the other way around, we are at His bidding...

Copyrighted by KC kalpna Sharma (Mrs.)

A Little Leftover Lunch/Supper to Share?

Every time I read the book of Ruth in the Bible, this story warms my heart. I like the way Ruth and Naomi are connected to each other. When we look at the cross-cultural marriage of Ruth to Naomi's son, we see Ruth, a Moabite; the people that were disliked, yet Ruth stands out as a diamond, pure, loving, gentle, caring, and humble. I almost find myself walking along with them on their way back to the land Naomi came from. I feel like I am being a fellow traveler with them.

Even as a young widow, Ruth is still looking out for her mother-in-law's interests. we see that she does not want to leave Naomi; no matter what, she is determined to be a close companion of Naomi, an elderly widow, mother-in-law, and a friend for a long time.

I find her obedient to God, to the parental authority, and the general norms of society, even at that age and in the state of being a young widow, with no hope of ever getting married, she is committed to Naomi; something so precious yet something a big part of our present culture will perhaps not grasp fully; because as in the days of Judges, and even nowadays, when majority is doing what they feel like, here we see Ruth and Boaz doing what God likes!!!!  She is ready to go wherever Naomi feels it OK to stay; she does not seem to argue that she will be better off in her own land and be able to find a job, as she spoke the language well and the place was familiar to her, her own people who were nearby and she could visit them often. No! She is choosing instead, to be Naomi's close person, more of a friend, even though coming from an Eastern culture I do know the term "you are more to me than seven sons," when a daughter or a daughter-in-law does an extraordinarily different and impacting thing, this term is often used. 

My heart went out to her fully when I read that when Boaz and his workers were nice to her and when she was offered lunch, she ate and then kept some part of that food for her dear Naomi. This is precious. We do read that she was blessed with a basket full of grains to take home but that little leftover lunch that she wanted to share with Naomi shows the depth of her love. She does want Naomi to experience the good taste that she has experienced. This impacts me more because I have two little Ruth types and one seemingly male version of Ruth around in my house. We have noticed that since their childhood, when one of our two daughters was offered some food even if it was a small portion, they will keep a part of it to come home and share with the other.

23 years ago, when I met Bharat, (my husband of 18 years at the time of writing this) he worked in an Accounts Department of a Panel Beating Company, back home in Nairobi, Kenya. In our initial meetings, even though I was working right in the downtown of the beautiful city of Nairobi, and my office was surrounded by many good restaurants, Bharat used to make a point of bringing a special egg curry that the cook at his place of work had freshly cooked for their staff. This curry used to be made at least once a week. He relished it so much that he felt he had to share it with me. He would travel with it using public transport to come downtown to bring me. I have not forgotten that. He was in love back then and so it felt kind of "normal" for "crazy" people to do that but now after many years of our very turbulent relationship it seems like in the restoring process, he brings food home from where he visits. As a self-employed independent contractor, he has to visit some of the best restaurants, as well as the fast food ones that he goes to. Whenever the shop requires him to do it alone, he brings leftover food home and shares it with us. He says he does not feel that he can enjoy it alone. (That reminded me of the Ruth personality) These incidents show the love and care that one can show. When his assignments require two folks to taste, either one of us would go with him, and whoever accompanies him brings back the leftover big portions for the one staying back at home. We thank God for blessing us with such generosity, it is nothing we can boast about but from God's good hand. Well, we thank God for such precious little things that have huge meaning behind them to bring us close to one another. As one of the major airline slogans reads, "There are more things that bring us closer than that keep us apart."

May these stories warm your heart and may you be encouraged to freely share whatever God places in your arms that you are able. (There are times to refrain from sharing like the story of the five wise and five foolish virgins so you are not depleted, so please do not feel obligated.) This is just some delightful normal sharing that is meant for the sake of kindness and not to be misused. 

in God's immeasurable love,
Kalpana.

Copyright @ Kalpana  Christian Sharma.