I want to focus on the most epic story in the chapter, the story of Ehud and Eglon. The intro is pretty usual, a rebellious king (Eglon) has captured the people of Israel, and a leader is raised up to free the people (Ehud). But then the story gets…messy.
In short, here’s what happens: Eglon’s a bit on the heavy side (ok, a lot on the heavy side). Ehud, a left-handed man, straps a short-sword to his right thigh for easy drawing. He enters Eglon’s private chambers (bathroom included), and ends up stabbing up. The short sword is swallowed by Eglon’s fat stomach. With me so far? Good. Here’s where it gets messy.

Judges 3:21-22

21 And Ehud reached with his left hand, took the sword from his right thigh, and thrust it into his belly. 22 And the hilt also went in after the blade, and the fat closed over the blade, for he did not pull the sword out of his belly; and the dung came out. (ESV)

The sword pierces Eglon’s intestinal tract, evidently, to the point where his dung comes out, which is smelled by everyone in the vicinity. In fact, they think he’s using the bathroom, until they realize he’s dead.

And that’s the lesson I want to learn. What?

Let me explain. Whenever I see a ‘sword’ in Scripture, my mind goes to this verse:

Ephesians 6:17

17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, (ESV).

The sword that the Spirit carries around is the Word of God, or what we know as the Bible.  And here’s the thing I’ve learned:

When the sword of Scripture pierces my core, it reveals my crap.

My sin, shortcomings, and how far short I really am of God’s glory is revealed whenever I read and study Scripture. But thankfully, I don’t have to smell good for God to accept me. I can smell like feces and still be loved by Him. Why?

Ephesians 5:2

2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (ESV)

Because Christ smells wonderful to the Father.

• To love Jesus, my wife, and my forthcoming children unconditionally and sacrificially.
• To look at my body as a method of worship. I need to lose about 10 pounds.
• I will be preaching, praying, working for this city [Greenville], even harder this year.
• To consistently and continually battle sin in my own life.
• To consistently and continually make disciples who make disciples.
• To seek God’s will in the future of the Brown family with regards to the cities of Greenville and Washington, DC.
• To launch a new blog this week.

Stay tuned.

• We’re having twins! Miranda and I went to the OB/GYN, and to our delightful surprise, we saw two little Brown youngin’s on the sonogram monitor. Wow! We don’t know the gender yet, and trust me, you won’t be the first to know. Sorry ’bout that.
• Some may call me a nut, and in fact, I’ve called other people nuts for saying something like this, but I really think that 2010 is going to be the year that we see revival in Greenville on a large scale. I’m praying earnestly that the Spirit would move mightily through the churches and rebels here in Greenville to bring people to Himself. I just see so much momentum at Harmony Church right now! We’re launching the City, partnering with a college ministry to reach ECU students, taking God & Guinness up a notch, resuming our work with 3rd Street School, launching a new online presence, and, of course, continuing to preach Jesus relentlessly!
• The book of Judges is awesome.
• Glad for this Christmas break, but at the same time stoked about preaching through John again in January. In fact, here’s the preaching schedule for next year (all is tentative, of course):
  • January 3rd-February 14th: Resuming John, picking up John 8:12, ending at John 10:42.
  • February 21st-March 21st: Bride Series, examining the structure (elders, deacons, partners) and makeup (church as body, church as bride) of the Church.
  • March 28th-June 20th: Resuming John, from John 11:1-John 14:31.
  • June 27th-July 25th: Annual Summer OT Series (Habakkuk).
  • August 1st-Aug 15th: Vision Series (GCM)
  • August 22nd – December 5th: John 15:1-John 20:31.
  • December: May finish John, may do Christmas series. Unknown as of yet.
• Excited about the City, and the opportunities it will create for us as a church.
• Stoked about date night this coming Friday!
• Excited about Christmas! The reason for the season: the Cross.
• It’s all I got now.

This next year, who knows what God is going to do spiritually in people’s hearts, but we already are seeing His work in ladies’ wombs: my wife is pregnant with our first (yay!) and our close friends, Brad and Hope, are expecting as well (our due dates are a week apart – that’s a tight Home Group)!

Our worship director (Pablo) texted me over Thanksgiving and asked what was up with the simultaneous and sudden pregnancies. I sent him back this verse:

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Genesis 1:28

and told him we were just obeying Scripture.

Verse 1

Joy to the world! the Lord is come;
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven and nature sing,
And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing.

Verse 2

Joy to the Earth! the Saviour reigns;
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat the sounding joy.

Verse 3

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

Verse 4

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.

Great stuff. Here’s Joshua James (an incredible artist in his own right) with Joy to the World:

Pass through the midst of the camp and command the people, “Prepare your provisions, for within three days you are to pass over this Jordan to go in to take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.”

- Joshua 1:11

This is at the very beginning of the chapter, when God is giving instructions to Joshua, the newly elected commander of the people of God. After 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, God tells Joshua to tell the people this: “What we’ve been praying, hoping, and waiting for will start to realize. Everything changes in 3 days.” Immediately after this pronouncement, in the very next chapter, Joshua sends scouts to Jericho, and it is there we see the timeframe given again:

And she (Rahab) said to them (the scouts), “Go into the hills, or the pursuers will encounter you, and hide there for three days until the pursuers have returned. Then afterward, you may go your way.”

-Joshua 2:16

Here’s the amazing thing: Rahab, the whore of Jericho, tells the Hebrew scouts to wait for three days before leading the Hebrew people across the great Jordan river…without knowing that it is the same timeframe God had given Jericho. She tells the scouts to wait for three days in order to protect them. Joshua is to lead the people across the river in three days. It seems as if God is orchestrating both parties, both Rahab and Joshua, according to His will. In fact, it seems as if this timeframe is somewhat special to God, choosing it as the time-frame between the death of the Prophet Moses (Joshua 1:1) and the entering of the people into the promised blessings of God, the land of Canaan.

The guys instantly picked up on this foreshadowing, and I hope you have as well. This frame between the death of Moses and the entering of Canaan is really just a shadow of the true Three Days that really matters: the three days between the death of the Prophet Jesus and the entering of the Church into the promised land of Resurrection. Jesus’ Resurrection starts our new life, indeed.

It’s amazing to think that a three day span in 1st century Palestine has dictated the entirety of human history. But it has. And I, for one, am grateful.

He made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

At Harmony, we’ll tackle this idea of Descension over the span of 3 weeks, beginning with the Crown, moving through the Magnificat of Mary (the first Christmas Carol!), and ending with Jesus being born in the Cradle. Our main text will be the book of Luke, but as usual I’ll sprinkle in some goodies from the Old Testament and the other books of the New Testament. Through the Scriptures, we’re going to look a lot of cool things in the Christmas story that we really don’t grasp until we put ourselves in the shoes of a 1st century Palestinian Jew. Nativity scenes are all messed up, trust me.

Should be fun.

And it’s going to be great time to show up for the first time too, if you’ve never been to Harmony.  And if you have been to Harmony, it’s great time to return. And if you attend Harmony, it’s a great time to bring your friends & family.

The Most Important Thing

There are two basic principles of Bible interpretation, that when fully followed, will ultimately lead to a correct interpretation of any text (though perhaps not on the first go-around, for soon to obvious reasons). Anytime we open the Scriptures, we should read the text with two things in mind:

1. The text we’re reading should line up with the rest of Scripture. This is much more difficult than it sounds because we don’t instantly know and remember all of Scripture. We could interpret a text one way, and then later read something that contradicts our interpretation. This requires that we review our opinion of the texts at hand. Something that really helps with this is to take good notes during in-depth study, and refer to them constantly. If two different sections of Scripture disagree, it’s not the text that is incorrect, it’s our awareness of how they dovetail together to provide the fullest picture of what’s going on. The Bible is a gloriously beautiful document, given to us by a sovereign and providential God, and we should approach it as such, with reverence, and a respect because it reveals God to us! What a marvelous thing.
2. The text we’re reading should reveal something of Jesus with respect to the Gospel. This is what 2 Timothy 3:16-17 talks about: we don’t read the Bible for information, we read the Bible for transformation. Every time we open the Scriptures, they should speak to our souls, filling in a brighter picture of Christ, that we may know the Man we should be imitating. Every bit of Scripture should reveal something about Christ, that we may look more like Him and that we may have a greater appreciation for His redemptive work on Earth and throughout history.

Class Notes

You can download the PDF of the Class Notes here. It’s been adapted from our GCM document, which is a document I’m putting together to form our Membership class.

YouVersion

For those of you out there who are tech-savvy, I’d recommend YouVersion, which is an online Bible application allowing you access the Bible (and your notes, along with the notes of others) from pretty much anywhere you have internet access. I would also recommend installing the mobile app to your iPhone, Blackberry, or Android phone. Also, you can access YouVersion from a web-enable phone, netbook, or computer as well.  We use YouVersion Live at Harmony Church to provide an interactive experience at our Sunday am gatherings, which includes having the text, my notes, a giving online button, prayer requests, Twitter, and polls right there at your fingertips…in the middle of our gathering.  I would suggest joining the Harmony Church Youversion Group to keep up with our gatherings!

Logos

I’ve recently converted to Bible software that I absolutely adore (that’s hard for me). It’s called Logos, it’s relatively expensive (but worth it, and they allow for payment plans), and it’s amazing. For any serious student, I’d highly recommend it. I’ll end up doing a full-blown review soon on it, but you can check it out here. If you decide to get any version of Logos, shoot me an email first (derek -at – harmonydc.com), and we can both get goodies through a refer-a-friend process. They also have a sweet iPhone client (check it out).

If you have any questions, comments, or other resources you use, post them below in the comments section!