Author:

Joseph Parker was a famed Congregationalist preacher of late nineteenth-century London. His People’s Bible is a monumental series of over 1000 sermons from the perspective of biblical (or narrative) theology, recently put back into print by Pioneer Library.

Overview:

Judges and Ruth is the sixth volume of Joseph Parker’s People’s Bible series. Like the Book of Judges itself, the book mostly reads like a book of character studies. Several of the sermons had surprising elements.

In the sermon “One Tribe Lacking”, Parker deals with the decimation of the tribe of Benjamin due to widespread violence and inhospitality in Judges 19 to 21. In Judges 21:3 the people ask God, “O Lord God of Israel, why is this come to pass in Israel, that there should be to day one tribe lacking in Israel?” Parker sees God’s heart for the lost in the Israelites’ inquiry that day. He connects the loss of Benjamin to the heart for the lost generally, especially Paul’s longing in Romans 9 to 11.

The “selected note” on Samson, taken from Kitto’s Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature, points out that Hebrews 11:32 lists Samson as one of the heroes of Old Testament literature, confirming a “favourable estimate of his character on the whole” (thus Kitto). While this judgment is perhaps against the tone of much modern American preaching (e.g. David Wilkerson), it is doubly confirmed among Old Testament scholars, who point to Samson’s honorable burial with his family (Judges 16:31) as evidence that Samson is regarded positively within the Old Testament itself (e.g. Niditch’s commentary on Judges). Samson’s flaws did not discount his twenty years of judging Israel; nor did his suicide disquality him from being crowned one of Israel’s heroic judges.

The man is not to be judged by what he did in the last week of his life. It is the life that God will judge — the tone, the purpose, the main idea of the life.

Joseph Parker, “Samson—Light and Shadow”, The People’s Bible, vol. 6, p.210 in the Pioneer Library edition

“Manoah’s Wife” (on Judges 13) was another stand-out sermon in the volume that has an unexpected turn related to the preacher’s biography. An angel appeared to Manoah’s wife—nameless in the biblical text—first, to announce that her son would deliver Israel. Then the angel appeared again in answer to Manoah’s prayer. Later in the story, Manoah panics that they could die as a result of their divine vision (13:22, cf. 6:22, Deuteronomy 5:26, Genesis 32:30, etc.). But Manoah’s wife shows him that the Lord had accepted their offering (13:23). Despite his fame and influence, Parker himself was never exactly satisfied with his work and sphere, and he depended much on the encouragement of his two wives (his first wife died after 12 years of marriage). Parker uses the story of Manoah and his wife to encourage communication between spouses as a means of spiritual safety.

He moves on to encourage women to be content in encouraging their husbands. In some ways, Parker’s concluding explanation of wifehood is typical for the Victorian era: she is the “angel of the house” (not a phrase used by Parker) and enjoys outsized influence through her patience and service. In other ways, Parker goes beyond the tropes of his time period: “Women have always said the finest things that have ever been said in the Bible.” (p.188)

Parker’s comments on Ruth were unfortunately few, mainly in the form of annotations to the text. The sermon on the “Character of Naomi”, though, was very good.

Overall, this was a very good volume of series, but I will need to fix a number of minor typos in a second edition, hopefully soon.