Day 1 (Monday)
Judges 1:1-36 (Israel’s Failure to Complete the Conquest of Canaan)
Last time, we saw the death of Joshua, after his final words to Israel urging them to be faithful to Yahweh, the God of Israel, Who had delivered them from slavery and granted to them the inheritance promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That concluded the book of Joshua; this week, we will continue by moving directly into the book of Judges, which picks up the story after Joshua’s death. Not to give spoilers, but…the news is not good!
Israel’s Failure to Complete the Conquest of Canaan
1 After the death of Joshua, the Israelites inquired of the Lord, “Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites, to fight against them?” 2 The Lord said, “Judah shall go up. I hereby give the land into his hand.” 3 Judah said to his brother Simeon, “Come up with me into the territory allotted to me, that we may fight against the Canaanites; then I too will go with you into the territory allotted to you.” So Simeon went with him.
4 Then Judah went up and the Lord gave the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand; and they defeated ten thousand of them at Bezek. 5 They came upon Adoni-bezek at Bezek, and fought against him, and defeated the Canaanites and the Perizzites. 6 Adoni-bezek fled; but they pursued him, and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and big toes. 7 Adoni-bezek said, “Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off used to pick up scraps under my table; as I have done, so God has paid me back.” They brought him to Jerusalem, and he died there.
8 Then the people of Judah fought against Jerusalem and took it. They put it to the sword and set the city on fire. 9 Afterward the people of Judah went down to fight against the Canaanites who lived in the hill country, in the Negeb, and in the lowland. 10 Judah went against the Canaanites who lived in Hebron (the name of Hebron was formerly Kiriath-arba); and they defeated Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai.
11 From there they went against the inhabitants of Debir (the name of Debir was formerly Kiriath-sepher). 12 Then Caleb said, “Whoever attacks Kiriath-sepher and takes it, I will give him my daughter Achsah as wife.” 13 And Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, took it; and he gave him his daughter Achsah as wife. 14 When she came to him, she urged him to ask her father for a field. As she dismounted from her donkey, Caleb said to her, “What do you wish?” 15 She said to him, “Give me a present; since you have set me in the land of the Negeb, give me also Gulloth-mayim.”[a] So Caleb gave her Upper Gulloth and Lower Gulloth.
16 The descendants of Hobab[b] the Kenite, Moses’ father-in-law, went up with the people of Judah from the city of palms into the wilderness of Judah, which lies in the Negeb near Arad. Then they went and settled with the Amalekites.[c] 17 Judah went with his brother Simeon, and they defeated the Canaanites who inhabited Zephath, and devoted it to destruction. So the city was called Hormah. 18 Judah took Gaza with its territory, Ashkelon with its territory, and Ekron with its territory. 19 The Lord was with Judah, and he took possession of the hill country, but could not drive out the inhabitants of the plain, because they had chariots of iron. 20 Hebron was given to Caleb, as Moses had said; and he drove out from it the three sons of Anak. 21 But the Benjaminites did not drive out the Jebusites who lived in Jerusalem; so the Jebusites have lived in Jerusalem among the Benjaminites to this day.
22 The house of Joseph also went up against Bethel; and the Lord was with them. 23 The house of Joseph sent out spies to Bethel (the name of the city was formerly Luz). 24 When the spies saw a man coming out of the city, they said to him, “Show us the way into the city, and we will deal kindly with you.” 25 So he showed them the way into the city; and they put the city to the sword, but they let the man and all his family go. 26 So the man went to the land of the Hittites and built a city, and named it Luz; that is its name to this day.
27 Manasseh did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shean and its villages, or Taanach and its villages, or the inhabitants of Dor and its villages, or the inhabitants of Ibleam and its villages, or the inhabitants of Megiddo and its villages; but the Canaanites continued to live in that land. 28 When Israel grew strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but did not in fact drive them out.
29 And Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer; but the Canaanites lived among them in Gezer.
30 Zebulun did not drive out the inhabitants of Kitron, or the inhabitants of Nahalol; but the Canaanites lived among them, and became subject to forced labor.
31 Asher did not drive out the inhabitants of Acco, or the inhabitants of Sidon, or of Ahlab, or of Achzib, or of Helbah, or of Aphik, or of Rehob; 32 but the Asherites lived among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land; for they did not drive them out.
33 Naphtali did not drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh, or the inhabitants of Beth-anath, but lived among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land; nevertheless the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh and of Beth-anath became subject to forced labor for them.
34 The Amorites pressed the Danites back into the hill country; they did not allow them to come down to the plain. 35 The Amorites continued to live in Har-heres, in Aijalon, and in Shaalbim, but the hand of the house of Joseph rested heavily on them, and they became subject to forced labor. 36 The border of the Amorites ran from the ascent of Akrabbim, from Sela and upward.
Discussion questions:
1) What did you notice in today’s reading? What surprised you or what was memorable to you? (The Leader should point out that, even though this passage is long, and seems repetitive, it is in fact critically important to everything that happens afterward, from this point until the conquest of Israel by the Assyrians and Babylonians centuries later. The children of Israel do not, in fact, drive out the people who had lived in the Promised Land before. In many cases, they enslave them (as they themselves had been enslaved in Egypt), or simply live side-by-side with them, but in all cases, eventually they adopt the gods of the Canaanites, and the practices of the Canaanites, and reject Yahweh the God of Israel, to whom they had promised to be always faithful. The actual conquest of the Promised Land, and the final driving out of the demon-gods worshipped by the Canaanites, does not happen until the Lord Himself comes in the New Testament, to drive out the demons who were continually afflicting and enslaving the people there.)
2) Where do we see Christ in this text; what is He saying or doing here?
3) Do we see ourselves and the Church in this text; what does it say about us?
4) What do you find difficult about this reading? Is there anything confusing about it, or anything that you dislike? (This is an open question, as always. )
5) Does this reading make you think that you need to change anything in your life?
Day 2 (Wednesday)
Saint Theophan the Recluse – The Path of Prayer – Sermon 2-1
St. Theophan was a Russian bishop and saint in the 1800’s, and he wrote a great many letters on the subject of prayer. He lived in a time that is not far distant from our own, but lived a life of prayer and dedication to the Lord, and his writings and sermons on the subject of prayer cut right to the heart of the matter. As we prepare for and begin the Lenten Fast this year, we will read one of his short sermons on how we should approach a rule of prayer. If you would like to review the sermon that we read last year, you can find it in the Week 25 reading from last year. (https://theruleoffaith.typepad.com/rei/2022/02/year-2-week-25-february-20-26-2022.html)
Saint Theophan the Recluse – The Path of Prayer – Sermon 2
Mental Prayer – 1
Yesterday, I showed you one method. By using it, you can educate the spirit of prayer in yourselves even while you are reciting the normal prayers from the prayer-book according to your personal rule.
But this is only the beginning of the art of prayer. You will need to go further. For example, you may recall the way you learn a language. First, the words and the forms of speech are learned by heart from books. But you cannot stop there. Instead, from this basis, you begin to move on to the stage where you can converse freely in the language you are studying.
You should do the same with the language of prayer. We become accustomed to reading our prayers from books – using the prayers passed down to us by Our Lord, and by the Holy Fathers who had achieved the art of prayer. But we must not stop at this. It is necessary to extend ourselves further. Once we have become accustomed to turn our ears and hearts to God using this help given by others, we should then also attempt to bring something of our own to Him, so to speak; to pass on into our own prayerful conversation with God; to raise ourselves toward Him; to open ourselves to Him; to confess to Him the contents and needs of our souls.
But the soul must be taught to do this. I will point out to you briefly what must be done to succeed in this art … but the habitual use of prayer books with reverence, attention and devotion leads to the same thing. Just in the same way that water pours of its own accord from an overfull vessel, so prayer to God begins to spring spontaneously from a heart which is filled with the holy feelings that have been produced by the habit of regular vocal prayer.
There are also special rules, special methods intended solely to achieve this objective, and everyone who wishes to succeed in prayer should become obedient to these rules.
Discussion questions:
1) What did you notice in today’s reading? What surprised you or what was memorable to you? (The Leader should point out the core point of this, that we need to learn not just how to attentively pray the prayers of the Church, which we find in prayer books or in Scripture, but ultimately we need to learn how to offer our own lives to God, to “bring something of our own to Him.” This is a harder thing to do, but is an important and necessary step in our growth in prayer and in communion with the Lord. So it is an appropriate thing to reflect on during the season of the Great Fast, which we begin this Cheesefare week.)
2) Where do we see Christ in this text; what is He saying or doing here?
3) Do we see ourselves and the Church in this text; what does it say about us?
4) What do you find difficult about this reading? Is there anything confusing about it, or anything that you dislike? (This is an open question, as always. )
5) Does this reading make you think that you need to change anything in your life?
Day 3 (Friday)
Matthew 21:1-27 (Entrance into Jerusalem, Cleansing the Temple)
Last time we saw Jesus in conflict with the Pharisees, who criticized His disciples for plucking stalks of grain to eat on the Sabbath, and then criticized Jesus for healing the man with the withered hand in the synagogue. Jesus therefore went away from there, and the crowds followed Him. We will NOT continue with that thread of the story at this time, however, because with the beginning of Great Lent approaching, we need to jump ahead to the narrative of the Lord’s Passion, beginning with His entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. We will return to the remaining elements of the Lord’s ministry after Pascha.
Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem
21 When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.” 4 This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying,
5 “Tell the daughter of Zion,
Look, your king is coming to you,
humble, and mounted on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” (Zechariah 9:9)
6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; 7 they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. 8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,
“Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!” (Psalm 118:25-26)
10 When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” 11 The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”
Jesus Cleanses the Temple
12 Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. 13 He said to them, “It is written,
‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’;
but you are making it a den of robbers.” (Jeremiah 7:11)
14 The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he cured them. 15 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did, and heard the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became angry 16 and said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read,
‘Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies
you have prepared praise for yourself’?” (Psalm 8:2)
17 He left them, went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there.
Jesus Curses the Fig Tree
18 In the morning, when he returned to the city, he was hungry. 19 And seeing a fig tree by the side of the road, he went to it and found nothing at all on it but leaves. Then he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” And the fig tree withered at once. 20 When the disciples saw it, they were amazed, saying, “How did the fig tree wither at once?” 21 Jesus answered them, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will be done. 22 Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive.”
The Authority of Jesus Questioned
23 When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” 24 Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. 25 Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ 26 But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.” 27 So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.
Discussion questions:
1) What did you notice in today’s reading? What surprised you or what was memorable to you? (The Leader should point how, in our last reading, Jesus was purposely avoiding conflict with the Pharisees and the other religious leaders in Galilee and Judaea, giving them time to repent. In skipping ahead nine chapters, we now see that that time is drawing swiftly to an end. In entering Jerusalem publicly, and going into the Temple, driving out the money-changers, and claiming it as “His house,” which is to be “a house of prayer,” He is clearly revealing Himself as the Messiah, and as God Himself, and calling the religious leaders to account for their faithless stewardship of His people. It is at this point that they turn finally and lethally against Him.)
2) Where do we see Christ in this text; what is He saying or doing here?
3) Do we see ourselves and the Church in this text; what does it say about us?
4) What do you find difficult about this reading? Is there anything confusing about it, or anything that you dislike? (This is an open question, as always. )
5) Does this reading make you think that you need to change anything in your life?