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Day 72, or March the 13th. We are all essential. Our thoughts today are based on Judges chapter

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21, verses 2 and 3. The people went to Bethel, where they sat before God until evening, raising

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their voices and weeping bitterly.

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Lord God of Israel, they cried. Why has this happened to Israel? Why should one tribe be missing from Israel today?

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First, the big picture surrounding these verses. Civil war breaks out between Israel and Benjamin,

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and the tribe of Benjamin is almost destroyed. It's ironic, really, as this small tribe would

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produce King Saul, who ruled after the judges. It was also the tribe that gave us the Apostle

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Paul, who was probably named after King Saul. It was only small, but the other tribes of

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Israel saw, almost too late, that it could not be allowed to disappear. A cunning plan

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is devised, and lots of young women are captured from Shiloh and taken by the Benjamites to

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help replenish their numbers.

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And now today's action step. Having vowed not to intermarry with the tribe of Benjamin,

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the other tribes then had to search for an escape clause, when Benjamin was almost wiped

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out and needed replenishing from outside. Even though the other tribes were larger than

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Benjamin, they conceded that without them the tribes of Israel would be incomplete.

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This seems an early prototype used by the Apostle Paul, who likens the church to a body,

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with each part having a job to fulfill, in order to achieve whole body ministry. Sometimes

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in local churches we are relieved when someone, who constantly raises queries and questions

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in the fellowship, leaves. Beware, they are sometimes the folk who stir us up into action,

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even if their ideas seem crazy at the time. When a church is made up of folk who agree

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with each other all the time, the edge can wear off and stimulation for progress is dulled.

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Thank God now for any of your fellowship who may irritate you. Don't ignore them. Listen

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carefully, just in case God is speaking to you through them.