After Moses, there was a series of judges to whom God spoke, and through whom God formatively spoke to the covenant community. God continued to initiate the revelation of his nature and will by speaking his Word through these judges. It can be argued that the primary role of these judges was to speak for God by exegeting God’s Law and applying the authentic content of the Law to the specific, existential context of the everyday life of the faith community. It is not enough to simply proclaim God’s Word randomly to the people of God. Authentic Christian leadership requires leading God’s people to specific application of God’s revelation to the real experience of Spiritual formation toward godly living.
The second chapter of Judges reveals God’s plan for the post-Moses/Joshua task of authentic Spiritual leadership. After Joshua died, “another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel” (Jud. 2:10b NIV). They became ignorant of the salvation history of God, recorded in the Law of Moses, so they “did evil in the eyes of the LORD and served the Baals. They forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They provoked the LORD to anger because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths” (Jud. 2:11-13 NIV).
Because no one taught them the Word of God, they could not obey it. They were unaware of the texts of God’s recorded revelation. Thus they were not Spiritually formed. The result of not hearing the Word of God was that “whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the LORD was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them” (Judges 2:15 NIV). He had sworn it to them in the text of the Law, but they were ignorant of God’s warnings and promises because no one was preaching the text to them. So “the LORD raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders” (Jud. 2:16 NIV). The primary task of the judges was to lead the people of God to listen to the text of God. This was a preaching task.
Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them. Unlike their fathers, they quickly turned from the way in which their fathers had walked, the way of obedience to the LORD’s commands. Whenever the LORD raised up a judge for them, he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived … But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their fathers, following other gods and serving and worshiping them. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways. Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel and said, “Because this nation has violated the covenant that I laid down for their forefathers and has not listened to me, I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations Joshua left when he died (Jud. 2:17-21 NIV).
Here, the formation of God’s people through listening to God’s Word by paying attention to God’s text is seen. By the time of the judges, the Law was recorded. Though the stories of the lives and words of the judges came more Scripture. The fundamental work of listening to God, from the time of Moses on, became the careful exegesis and proclamation of God’s text. This text is variously called, among many things, “the Scriptures” (Mar. 12:10); the “law", “decrees", “statutes”, “commands”, “precepts", and “promises” (Ps. 119); “the law and the prophets” (Lk.16:16); “the apostles and prophets” (Eph. 2:20); “my word” (Is. 55:11); “the word of God” (1 Thes. 2:13); “the word of the prophets” (2 Pet. 1:19); and “the word of truth” (Col. 1:5).
From the time of Moses on, there was a holy text to pay attention to and to meditate on. Authentic godly meditation is precisely what the Hebrew word for meditation evokes – a “mumbling over” of God’s revealed (written) Word. When the Lord tells Joshua to “not let this book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night” (Josh. 1:8), God was instructing him to memorize and “mumble over” the text day and night. When the last psalm before the psalms of ascent (Psalm 119) asks, “How can a young man keep his way pure?” the answer is proclaimed, “by living according to your Word...I have hidden your Word is my heart...With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth” (Ps. 119:9, 11 NIV).
When one is doing this, it is imperative that it is done with a thorough understanding of the context of the passages being meditated on. It is so easy for people, as fallen, self-centered creatures, to misinterpret the texts and apply them in unholy ways to self-centered contexts. Joshua and the writer of Psalm 119 were steeped in an understanding of the content, context, history, and meaning of the texts they prayed, memorized, and mumbled over. The apostle John wrote Revelation with this same Scripture-soaked imagination, drawing from the imagery of the whole revealed Word, and quoting from almost every book of the Bible.
Some have argued that there are two contrasting approaches to the understanding of the Word. One is the rational, exegetical study of the Scriptures with one’s mind, while the other is the direct, inspirational revelation of the Spirit of God to one’s heart. It is said that one represents the ministry of the Word and the other the ministry of the Spirit. John Woodhouse makes a convincing argument for the absurdity of this dichotomy, stressing that the Word and the Spirit are inseparable. He rejects the attempt to bring a “balance” between these two heretical extremes, demonstrating that the illumination of God’s Word is the primary work and message of the Holy Spirit. He then calls for an embracing of the authentically Christian approach to the Word, which is a dynamic synergy between the Spirit of God speaking and working through the Word of God.
