Thursday, September 16: 2Kings 22-Memory or text.

My memory isn’t perfect, I forget things. I confuse certain aspects of a story. Not long ago I was chatting about an incident in our lives some 25 years ago, talking about a phone call we received from a young girl we knew. I got most of it right but after I was finished my wife reminded me that the girl was 5 not 10 when the story happened.

We forget details, sometimes minor, sometimes major. And I am assuming good intentions here. Sometimes people distort the past on purpose which is why journalists are supposed to have corroborating sources for their stories.

My point is that for every one of us memory is imperfect which is why for important things having a written record is so important…

Flash back to the text we read today. 18 years into Josiah’s reign they find the Book of the Law.  When was the last time anyone in Israel has evaluated the way they were living based on the book? Apparently it had been a loooong time, a very long time. 18 years plus Manasseh’s and Amon’s reign of 57 years suggests at least 75 since the Book of the Law has had any authority in Israel.  This assumes that Hezekiah had the Book of the Law when he was king. A lot of corporate memory loss will happen in 75 years.

How much and how specific would our corporate memory be of WWII if we had no written records? WWII was about 65-70 years ago.

I mused on this when I realized that it had been a minimum of 75 years since Israel’s kings and priests had read God’s word, God’s laws and God’s decrees! Imagine what the practices of the church would be if it had been 75 years since anyone had seen or read the Bible! YIKES!!!

What an interesting way to consider how important God’s word is for us. God’s people across the ages have been called ‘the people of the Book.’ Are we? Do we read it and follow it? Hmmm, let’s pray:

O. God. thank You for inscribing Your word, Your story of salvation and Your laws and decrees in words on paper. Help me to honor, treasure and follow Your word. Lord, without your word, I am operating solely on memory, which in my case isn’t necessarily reliable. Thank You for writing down Your word and giving it to us.

What a gift Your written word is… Amen.

 

PS: Tomorrow we discover what Josiah did when he finally read God’s word… but that is for tomorrow.

 

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