WordLive - Year OneSample

Prepare: Acknowledge God’s faithfulness and call upon him now. ‘Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray’ (Psalm 5:2, NIV). An ordinary woman In Australia ‘equal opportunity’ is an employment law concept: the principle that everyone, regardless of gender, disability, race etc will be given an equal opportunity to be appointed to a job. In today’s passage, God shows a complete disregard for any gender prejudice which might have been prevalent at the time of the judges. Deborah is both an ordinary woman (a wife and mother – see 5:7) and an extraordinary woman (a prophetess so filled with the Holy Spirit that she speaks the very words of God). The people of Israel trust and respect her to decide their disputes and ‘heroes’ such as Barak refuse to go to war without her beside them! Receiving honour Notice how Deborah describes God as ‘the LORD God of Israel’ (v 6) when she is talking to Barak rather than ‘the LORD your God’. Remember that Barak is part of a generation that ‘did not know the LORD nor any of the things he had done for Israel’ (2:10). He is not content with God’s promise of victory prophesied to him directly – he wants the ‘wise woman’ there with him. A people saturated in idolatry always seek and worship what they can see and touch. And so the honour goes to another – a woman. Respond: God wants to honour those who love, acknowledge and call upon him. Meditate on the promises in Psalm 91:14–16. http://www.wordlive.org/Session/Classic/2012-08-07