Women of the Bible: the wise woman of Tekoa

2 Samuel 14:1 Now Joab the son of Zeruiah perceived that the king’s heart was toward Absalom. 2 Joab sent to Tekoa, and brought a wise woman from there, and said to her, “Please act like a mourner, and put on mourning clothing, please, and don’t anoint yourself with oil, but be as a woman who has mourned a long time for the dead. 3 Go in to the king, and speak like this to him.” So Joab put the words in her mouth. 

 4 When the woman of Tekoa spoke to the king, she fell on her face to the ground, showed respect, and said, “Help, O king!” 5 The king said to her, “What ails you?” She answered, “Truly I am a widow, and my husband is dead. 6 Your servant had two sons, and they both fought together in the field, and there was no one to part them, but the one struck the other, and killed him. 7 Behold, the whole family has risen against your servant, and they say, ‘Deliver him who struck his brother, that we may kill him for the life of his brother whom he killed, and so destroy the heir also.’ Thus they would quench my coal which is left, and would leave to my husband neither name nor remainder on the surface of the earth.” 8 The king said to the woman, “Go to your house, and I will give a command concerning you.” 9 The woman of Tekoa said to the king, “My lord, O king, may the iniquity be on me, and on my father’s house; and may the king and his throne be guiltless.” 10 The king said, “Whoever says anything to you, bring him to me, and he will not bother you any more.” 11 Then she said, “Please let the king remember Yahweh your God, that the avenger of blood destroy not any more, lest they destroy my son.” He said, “As Yahweh lives, not one hair of your son shall fall to the earth.” 

12 Then the woman said, “Please let your servant speak a word to my lord the king.” He said, “Say on.” 13 The woman said, “Why then have you devised such a thing against the people of God? For in speaking this word the king is as one who is guilty, in that the king does not bring home again his banished one. 14 For we must die, and are like water spilled on the ground, which can’t be gathered up again; neither does God take away life, but devises means, that he who is banished not be an outcast from him. 15 Now therefore seeing that I have come to speak this word to my lord the king, it is because the people have made me afraid. Your servant said, ‘I will now speak to the king; it may be that the king will perform the request of his servant.’ 16 For the king will hear, to deliver his servant out of the hand of the man who would destroy me and my son together out of the inheritance of God. 17 Then your servant said, ‘Please let the word of my lord the king bring rest; for as an angel of God, so is my lord the king to discern good and bad. May Yahweh, your God, be with you.’” 

18 Then the king answered the woman, “Please don’t hide anything from me that I ask you.” The woman said, “Let my lord the king now speak.” 19 The king said, “Is the hand of Joab with you in all this?” The woman answered, “As your soul lives, my lord the king, no one can turn to the right hand or to the left from anything that my lord the king has spoken; for your servant Joab urged me, and he put all these words in the mouth of your servant. 20 Your servant Joab has done this thing to change the face of the matter. My lord is wise, according to the wisdom of an angel of God, to know all things that are in the earth.” 21 The king said to Joab, “Behold now, I have done this thing. Go therefore, and bring the young man Absalom back.” 22 Joab fell to the ground on his face, showed respect, and blessed the king. Joab said, “Today your servant knows that I have found favor in your sight, my lord, king, in that the king has performed the request of his servant.”

Joab, and the wise woman, figured out a way to get King David to partly reconcile himself to his son, Absalom (who had killed one of his half-brothers, with some reason.)

With Christ in the school of prayer, by Andrew Murray, 87

This post continues a series of excerpts from With Christ in the School of Prayer, by Andrew Murray. I thank the Christian Classics Ethereal Library for making this public domain work available. To see their post of the book, go here. The previous post is here. As usual in this blog, long quotations are in this color. Murray continues his discussion, based on Mark 11:22-24:

We find that this is a thought to which our Lord frequently gave expression. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. v. 23, 24), when speaking of the sixth commandment, He taught His disciples how impossible acceptable worship to the Father was if everything were not right with the brother: ‘If thou art offering thy gift at the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.’ And so later, when speaking of prayer to God, after having taught us to pray, ‘Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors,’ He added at the close of the prayer: ‘If you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.’ At the close of the parable of the unmerciful servant He applies His teaching in the words: ‘So shall also my Heavenly Father do unto you, if ye forgive not every one his brother from your hearts.’ And so here, beside the dried-up fig-tree, where He speaks of the wonderful power of faith and the prayer of faith, He all at once, apparently without connection, introduces the thought, ‘Whensoever ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against any one; that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.’ It is as if the Lord had learned during His life at Nazareth and afterwards that disobedience to the law of love to men was the great sin even of praying people, and the great cause of the feebleness of their prayer. And it is as if He wanted to lead us into His own blessed experience that nothing gives such liberty of access and such power in believing as the consciousness that we have given ourselves in love and compassion, for those whom God loves.

Christian stewardship of the environment, from the New Testament

Romans 1:20 For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity, that they may be without excuse.

Psalm 19:1-3 The heavens declare the glory of God. The expanse shows his handiwork. Day after day they pour out speech, and night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.

God’s revelation should be as clear as possible. Christians have translated the Bible into many languages, revised translations so that they speak more clearly, and created and updated church music, so that it fits the culture better. Nature also speaks of God. The message of God through nature should be as clear – free of extinction, pollution and destruction – as we can make it. Unfortunately, we are gradually degrading God’s revelation through nature. For example, a third of the people on earth can’t see the Milky Way now, because of “light pollution.”

Colossians 1 describes Christ, and his mission, which includes reconciliation, and holding things together:
17 He is before all things, and in him all things are held together. 18 He is the head of the body, the assembly, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence. 19 For all the fullness was pleased to dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile all things to himself by him, whether things on the earth or things in the heavens, having made peace through the blood of his cross.

Christ holds things together, and reconciles all things to himself.
 
2 Corinthians 5 indicates that believers are to carry out Christ’s ministry of reconciliation: 18 But all things are of God, who reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, and gave to us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning to them their trespasses, and having committed to us the word of reconciliation. (scripture from the World English Bible, public domain)

If believers are responsible for helping Christ in reconciliation, aren’t we also responsible for helping Him to hold all things together? (Which means, in part, caring for the environment.) See also Psalm 24:1, Genesis 1:28, 31, Psalm 104:24-5 and more. This post considers what the Old Testament says about our responsibility to care for the environment.

The New Testament teaches that Christians should be stewards of the environment.

Psalm 19:1-4 and Romans 1:20 tell us that observing and learning about nature are part of God’s revelation to humans. If that is so, isn’t that a reason to try to preserve nature as well as we can?

The Bible is one of the ways that God reveals Himself to us. Christians believe that the Bible should be translated into the language people are most familiar with, so that that revelation may be as clear as possible. Similarly, it would seem that God’s revelation through nature should be as clear as possible. A person is more likely to see God in a beautiful clear stream than in a polluted river, or in a clear sky than in a smog-filled atmosphere. Seeing bison herds roam freely in Western North America, or immense flocks of passenger pigeons, gave people a glimpse of aspects of God’s power and majesty that they can’t get now. Helping to preserve nature in as good a condition as we can is one way to bring people to a saving knowledge of Christ. Not the most direct way, and perhaps not the most effective, but it is still a way to do this.
 
Colossians 1:15-20 says, of Christ, that “in Him all things are held together.” That passage also says that He is working to reconcile all things to Himself, and that He is working to make peace through the blood of the cross. As Christians, we believe that it is our duty to be His instruments in reconciling sinners to Christ, and to help Him in the ministry of making peace. 2 Corinthians 5:18-19 tells us that: 18 But all things are of God, who reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, and gave to us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning to them their trespasses, and having committed to us the word of reconciliation.

(Hebrews 1:3 also tells us that Christ is holding all things together.)  
Christians believe they should participate in Christ’s work of reconciliation. Shouldn’t they also participate in His work of holding all things together, including endangered species, ecosystems and biological communities?

What do you think? (See here for Old Testament teaching on environmental stewardship. There is lots of it!)

Thanks for reading. This post was modified from this one.

"Once Brothers": Vlade Divac and Dražen Petrović

I was privileged to see most of the documentary, "Once Brothers," on ESPN on October 12th. (I was channel surfing -- I haven't watched ESPN during prime time for months.)

This is a great documentary, combining basketball, international politics, and forgiveness and reconciliation. See here for a review. The film is available here, and probably in other places. It concentrates on Vlade Divac, a Serbian, and Dražen Petrović, a Croatian. Both were basketball players. They came to the US, drafted by NBA teams. At that time, they were both citizens of Yugoslavia, and great friends. They played together on the Yugoslavian National Basketball team, which beat a good US team in an international tournament. They would talk to each other for hours. (They were on two different NBA teams, so didn't see each other much.)

Unfortunately, Yugoslavia fell apart, and so did their relationship. They barely spoke. Then Petrović was killed in an auto accident, just as he was coming into NBA stardom.

The film has footage of NBA and other basketball, and discusses the careers of the two men. It features interviews with Magic Johnson, who was a teammate of Divac, and with some US-born teammates of Petrović. More importantly, it shows interviews with Toni Kucoč and Dino Radja, both Croatians who were former Yugoslavians, and former NBA players, as they give their views of what happened to the relationship between the two principals.

Divac, although seldom mentioned now, had one of the great careers of NBA players, being "one of six players in NBA history to record 13,000 points, 9,000 rebounds, 3,000 assists and 1,500 blocked shots, along with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Tim Duncan, Shaquille O'Neal, Kevin Garnett and Hakeem Olajuwon," according to the Wikipedia article on him. Petrović might have had an equally lustrous career, had he lived. (I did a little research on the NBA site, and discovered that the organization didn't always keep track of blocked shots. Bill Russell almost certainly would have been included in this small group, if they had. Perhaps other players would have, too.)

It was a pleasure to hear from players I used to watch on TV. It was a pain to hear how the two principals fell out over geography, ethnicity, and international politics. The falling out was probably the fault of neither, or perhaps both. Divac, at least, apparently tried to mend the breach, but never was able to.

The film includes footage of Divac traveling to Croatia, where he had not been in many years, and visiting the parents of his old friend. It seems clear that he reconciled with them, and they with him, at least. Original friendship, and reconciliation, are important to us. They are even more important to God. (The film is not overtly religious, but indicates that Petrović read his Bible more during a time when he was disappointed because he didn't get much playing time, and Divac uses God's name a time or two, in a grateful way.)

Paul mentions Christ's ministry of reconciliation in 2 Corinthians 5:11-18 and Romans 5:11.

Thanks for reading. If you need to reconcile with someone, or with God, do so.