Question
What are the Scriptures that tell of God’s Covenant with Israel concerning the “land”, that it will be theirs forever, when they entered it, when they were dispersed from it. Did they break covenant with God? Did He promise to bring them back to it thousands of years later? My greatest need is a chronology of the events, with scripture references.

Answer
God promised Abraham a people and a land (Genesis 12.1ff). He provided the beginning of the people promise with the birth of Isaac. It wasn’t until the book of Joshua that the land portion was fulfilled. The land was a place in which the covenant people were to be the light to the world concerning the creator God.

Israel failed and Jesus came to be for the world what Israel could not accomplish. He selected 12 disciples, the beginning of a new Israel. Paul speaks to the church in these terms (Gal. 6.15-16). The church has a new land. It is the whole world (John 3.16). It is the mission of the church to redeem the whole world and all that is in it. This is what Jesus came to accomplish in his death and resurrection.

The idea of specific land is the idle curiosity of a dispensational brand of theology (Dallas Seminary, Hal Lindsey, John MacArthur, The Left Behind series) to mention a few. This form of theology is rather new within the church coming into existence in the mid 1800s in England in a prophecy movement.

Question
How long did Job’s suffering last? I was just wondering if you could give me a general idea. I was told 6 months by one person and 30 years by another.
Answer
There seems to be nothing in the text that would indicate how long Job suffered. Any time allotted to the suffering would probably be guesses.

If the book could be heard as speaking to sufferers in Job’s position (people who are suffering, that is, for no reason they themselves can think of), what it would be saying is: Let Job the patient sufferer be your model, so long as that is possible for you. But when you cannot bear that any longer, let your grief and anger and impatience direct you towards God, for he is ultimately the origin of the suffering, and it is only through encounter with him that the anguish can be relieved.

Question
Who was Ruth before she got married?
Answer
Ruth was a Moabitess before she was married to Mahlon. The land of Moab (Jer. 48:24), called also the “country of Moab” (Ruth 1:2, 6; 2:6), was on the east of Jordan and the Dead Sea.

Below are two articles that may be of help from Easton’s Bible Dictionary and Smith’s Bible Dictionary. While both are older dictionaries, the information is still valid.

From Easton’s Bible Dictionary

Ruth could mean a friend. She was a Moabitess and the wife of Mahlon, whose father, Elimelech, had settled in the land of Moab. On the death of Elimelech and Mahlon, Naomi came with Ruth, her daughter-in-law, who refused to leave her, to Bethlehem, the old home from which Elimelech had migrated. There she had a rich relative, Boaz, to whom Ruth was eventually married. She became the mother of Obed, the grandfather of David. Thus Ruth, a Gentile, is among the maternal progenitors of our Lord (Matt. 1:5). The story of “the gleaner Ruth illustrates the friendly relations between the good Boaz and his reapers, the Jewish land system, the method of transferring property from one person to another, the working of the Mosaic law for the relief of distressed and ruined families; but, above all, handing down the unselfishness, the brave love, the unshaken trustfulness of her who, though not of the chosen race, was, like the Canaanitess Tamar (Gen. 38:29; Matt. 1:3) and the Canaanitess Rahab (Matt. 1:5), privileged to become the ancestress of David, and so of ‘great David’s greater Son’” (Ruth 4:18-22). [Easton’s Bible Dictionary]

From Smith’s Bible Dictionary

Ruth (a female friend), a Moabitish woman, the wife, first of Mahlon, secondly of Boaz, the ancestress of David and of Christ, and one of the four women who are named by St. Matthew in the genealogy of Christ. A severe famine in the land of Judah induced Elimelech, a native of Bethlehem-ephratah, to immigrate into the land of Moab, with his wife Naomi, and his two sons, Mahlon and Chilion. This was probably about the time of Gideon, B.C. 1250. At the end of ten years Naomi, now left a widow and childless, having heard that there was plenty again in Judah, resolved to return to Bethlehem, and her daughter-in-law Ruth returned with her. They arrived at Bethlehem just at the beginning of barley harvest, and Ruth, going out to glean, chanced to go into the field of Boaz, a wealthy man and a near kinsman of her father-in-law, Elimelech. Upon learning who the stranger was, Boaz treated her with the utmost kindness and respect, and sent her home laden with corn which she had gleaned. Encouraged by this incident, Naomi instructed Ruth to claim at the hand of Boaz that he should perform the part of her husband’s near kinsman, by purchasing the inheritance of Elimelech and taking her to be his wife. With all due solemnity, Boaz took Ruth to be his wife, amidst the blessings and congratulations of their neighbors. Their son, Obed, was the father of Jesse, who was the father of David. [Smith’s Bible Dictionary]

Question
Judges 19-21 and many similar passages treat women terribly; also Jewish army men are even allowed to kill foreign families and take virgin girls as their wives. These stories sound more like the current Muslims extremist who carry out such practices in the name of Allah. Passages like these have always troubled me, but I am rereading the Bible at present and the terribleness of these stories has hit me again. I fail to see how these stories teach us anything, especially since the Jews weren’t condemned for such practices.

Answer
Chapters 17.1-21.25 form an Appendix to the book of Judges. The stories told in this segment of Judges are tales that occurred during the time when Israel had abandoned the covenant relationship with God as the stories in this section note. The book closes with the sad picture of “everyone did as he saw fit.” Without the recital and recommitment of their forefathers, they doomed themselves to disaster.

They may teach us today that left to ourselves without God’s leadership we may be doomed to the same disaster as our forefathers were during this period.

As some of you readers know I am currently enrolled in a second Doctor of Ministry degree program at George Fox University, Portland, OR, in Leadership in the Emerging Culture with Len Sweet as my mentor.

I am writing my dissertation project on the concept of Story which I call God’s EPIC Adventure. So I have started a new blog to share with you some of the stuff that I am writing. BTW: if you are also a blogger, give it a plug on your blog. I would appreciate it!

So scoot on over to the blog now and I trust that you will find the information useful and helpful as you read the Story of God as presented in the Bible.

Question
Judges 16:28-30 tells of Samson asking God to let him die with the Philistines. Why did Samson want to die?

Answer
The fundamental problem with the Israelites throughout the whole period of the judges had been their fatal attraction to other gods (idol worship: 2:10-13). Samson’s great contribution to God’s purpose was to demonstrate, if only in his death, the total supremacy of the Lord (Yahweh) and the utter irrelevance of other gods (represented here by Dagon). In this, Samson’s achievement is not unlike that of Elijah on Mt. Carmel (1 Kings. 18:16-40). The text does not supply a specific answer to the question. Since we cannot read the mind of Samson, we cannot offer a specific answer.