Josh1Eight

 Scripture: 1 Samuel 8:1-5  "1 As Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons to be judges over Israel...3 But they were not like their father, for they were greedy for money. They accepted bribes and perverted justice. 4 Finally, all the elders of Israel met at Ramah to discuss the matter with Samuel. 5 "Look," they told him, "you are now old, and your sons are not like you. Give us a king to judge us like all the other nations have."   Observations:  Samuel was Israel's longest and most godly judge who led a spiritually corrupt nation in significant spiritual reform. His leadership restored true worship and motivated God's people to renounce their idolatry. However, although Samuel was a godly leader to the nation, he failed to lead his sons in the ways of God. We read in the previous chapter that Samuel's ministry to Israel required him to travel a lot (1 Samuel 7:16-17), meaning that he wasn't home very often. As a result, his family suffered. No...

Scripture: Ruth 2:2-3 2 One day Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go out into the harvest fields to pick up the stalks of grain left behind by anyone who is kind enough to let me do it.” Naomi replied, “All right, my daughter, go ahead.” 3 So Ruth went out to gather grain behind the harvesters. And as it happened, she found herself working in a field that belonged to Boaz, the relative of her father-in-law, Elimelech." Observations: In the Old Testament the Bible includes the story of a woman named Ruth in a book which bears her name. She and her mother-in-law Naomi had fallen on some pretty hard times with the death of her husband and father-in-law. Not knowing where to turn in their grief, they decided to move back home to the land of Israel, Naomi's homeland. Despite the fact that they were in dire straits with nothing and no one to sustain them, they did the best they could with what they had. Ruth, still a young woman, became the bread-winner (literally, by gatherin...