Voices from the Word

By Bill Dunphy

This is a different kind of book about the Bible. The stories will ring a bell for many of you, but the details of the stories may not be known to you . . . yet! Their voices should sound familiar to you as you read their stories. You will meet kings, shepherds, fishermen, soldiers, desperados, and visionaries; mothers, fathers, teenagers, and babies; good people, and a few bad ones. They may be strangers to you, but as you get to know them, you may recognize their voices as not being that much different from your own or from the voices of people that you know. Some of them may already be familiar to you, but many others are those quieter voices of the minor characters in the major stories of the Bible.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Apr 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781512772852

Bill Dunphy

Bill Dunphy spent a decade in the ministry and many more years in business as an Organization Development Director: sermons first, and then training materials for supervisors and executives. He also coached managers at all levels in the United States and internationally. Dunphy sought to help his clients or his parishioners develop their own leadership skills. In a sense, he was inviting them—from the boardroom or the sanctuary—to step into the plan God has for their lives.

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Copyright © 2017 Bill Dunphy.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture quotations in this publications are from The Message. Copyright © by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Two Scripture passages: Epigraph on page vii and Aaron’s Blessing on page 28 are from the King James Version of the Bible. No copyright nor permission needed.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5127-7284-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-7286-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-7285-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017900916

WestBow Press rev. date: 05/17/2017

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

The Mother of Nations (Sarah)

The Wrong Mother for a Promised Son (Hagar)

I Always Thought I Was Special (Ishmael)

Dad Always Liked You Best! (Reuben)

Riches to Rags to Riches (Ruth and Naomi)

Tall Saul (King Saul)

Mighty Prince, Warrior, Loyal Friend (Jonathon)

They Changed My Name (Mephibosheth)

I Hate Them All! (Jonah)

Between BC and AD (Zacharias and Elizabeth)

We Followed Our Star (Kasper, the Wise Man)

Who Is This Kid? (Bethlehem Innkeeper)

Terrified by an Angel (Christmas Shepherd)

Could I Have Said No? (Mother Mary)

Baskets of Bread, Buckets of Fish (Teenage Boy)

On the Edge of Murder (Synagogue Attendant)

Extreme Exclusivity (Supposed Rival)

Looking for the Lost Coin (Minor Miser)

A Lot of Work for Just One (Sheep Owner)

The Runaway Son (Prodigal Son)

The Lonely Father (Prodigal’s Father)

The Angry Brother (Prodigal’s Brother)

Hijacked on the Road to Jericho (The Good Samaritan’s Patient)

My Two Sisters (Lazarus)

From Fisherman to Missionary (Disciple Andrew)

From Watcher to Writer (John Mark)

It’s Tough Being a Servant (Miriam)

Man on the Third Cross (A Thief)

When All Hades Broke Loose (Guard at the Tomb)

Hand Signals (Cleopas and Companion)

Who Is That Man? (Thomas the Disciple)

A Nice Guy Finished First (Gamaliel)

I Can’t Eat That Stuff! (Peter and Cornelius)

Dialogues and More

Shrimp vs. Giant (David and Goliath)

It’s Tough Being a Servant Girl (Miriam and Peter)

The Prodigal’s Disappointed Dad (The Prodigal’s Father and His Two Sons)

Hand Signals (Cleopas, His Companion, and Jesus)

How to Use These Stories

Bibliography

Notes

To the glory of God.

and

to Caroline,

my understanding and loving wife,

an artist and the mother of our two creative adult children

And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude,

and as the voice of many waters,

and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying,

Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.

(Revelation 19:6 KJV)

Preface

This is a different kind of Bible story book. The stories will ring a bell with many of you, but the details of the stories may not be known to you … yet! Their voices should sound familiar to you as you read their stories. You will meet kings, soldiers, mothers, fathers, teenagers, babies, shepherds, visionaries, fishermen, good people, and a few bad ones, among them desperados, and many others. They may be strangers to you, but as you get to know them, you may recognize their voices as not being that much different from your own, or from people you know.

Some of these stories may be familiar to you, but many of the people in them are hidden away as minor characters in the primary stories of the main message of the Bible. That message is of God’s entrance into the world He created. His invasion of the world was accomplished by His Son, Jesus Christ, whose birth, life, teaching ministry, death, and resurrection is the paramount message of the Father’s action in the world. After the ascension of the Christ, the third person of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit, became the presence of the Godhead in the world.

Without tampering with the essential message of the scriptures, the author of these stories constructed the probable actions and possible speech of the people you will meet. Of course, the actions and words you will read are fictional but are based on research into the life and times in which the biblical characters lived. Attitudes and reactions to events and other people are assumed to be much like ours when in similar circumstances. To some extent, the author has given a contemporary slant to the words people used in speaking to each other. One source that assisted in this slant was the translation of the Bible, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language, done by Eugene H. Peterson and printed by NavPress, in alliance with Tyndale House Publishers.

Note: You will find suggestions for how to use these stories at the end of this book.

The superscript numbers you find throughout the book will direct you to specific notes page 293.

Acknowledgments

A handful of people contributed to this book in a variety of significant ways:

• My daughter, Maureen Dunphy, the recently published author of Great Island Escapes: Ferries and Bridges to Adventure, not only encouraged me to write, but also was the primary editor of this book. She worked tirelessly with me, helping and teaching me what she uses in her work as a teacher and coach of published authors.

• My wife, Caroline Dunphy (the artist C. Dunphy), designed the cover of the book you are holding in your hands and patiently assisted in the editing process in various roles through long hours of reading them with me.

• Rev. Roy McBeth, deceased pastor of Strathmoor-Judson Baptist Church, Detroit, Michigan, started me on my journey of faith as a Christian camp director and as a pastor.

• Four past, interim, and current pastors of Rosedale Gardens Presbyterian Church in Livonia, Michigan:

° Rev. Kellie Whitlock, Senior Pastor, a relentless encourager and promoter.

° Rev. Richard Peters, Pastor Emeritus, whose sermons and illustrations were always memorable.

° Rev. Stephen Clark, our former pastor, whose preaching of the Word gave me the idea for this book.

° Rev. Anne Schaefer, Interim Pastor, whose sermon on Jonah opened my eyes to him and his motivations.

• Eugene H. Peterson, translator of THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language. With two exceptions, this translation is used exclusively for the Bible passages included in this text. The clarity of his translation is one of the sparks that gives light to the stories in this book.

• The members of Rosedale Gardens Presbyterian Church, who listened to some of these stories in worship services, at work camps, and in formal services, as well, and insisted on having them put into a book.

The Mother of Nations

The Voice of Sarah, Abraham’s Wife

Wouldn’t you know—just when a girl gets settled into a life with her friends and things to do, when she knows all the shops and markets and thinks life is finally settling down, her husband comes up with a story about moving to the other side of the world. On the one hand, I don’t know of any other women who have had this experience, and on the other hand, I’m sure my women friends would tell me I’m crazy to even think about it—much less go through with it.

What I didn’t know was that my husband, Abram, had been talking to his God, who told him to move to the other side of the world. God didn’t even tell my husband where that side of the world was located. It was something like a just start out, and I’ll tell you when to stop kind of thing.

Abram walked into our tent and abruptly announced, Sarai, we are going on a trip, but I don’t know where we are going.

Abram, I said, "Give me a break. A trip? Do you think we’ll be gone for a long time? What shall I plan on taking? How’s the weather there? What servants shall I ask to go? Oh, when will we be leaving? Oh, by the way, what about your father, Terah, and your nephew, Lot? Are they going too? I need to know if I have to plan for them too. Shall I pack lunches, or do you think we’ll find a place along the way to eat? I had better start making my lists.

"What do you mean you don’t know the answers to my questions? Really? Sometimes I just don’t understand you, Abram. Why didn’t you ask your God some of these questions? You always leave the planning, the questions, and the details to me.

I’m sorry, Abram, if I ask so many questions—but you really threw me for a loop. I’m not as young as I was when we first married, you know, so you can’t expect me to jump for joy at this news. After all, I am now all of twenty-five years of age. However, there is one good thing about all of this—I won’t have to hang my head in shame anymore because we don’t have children. Our neighbors and my friends are beginning to talk about why the gods are cursing me. All my friends are having their first babies, and they laughed and laughed as they told me that I’d probably be the last one to have a child. Humph! Little did they know how right they’d be.

Eventually we left for somewhere—with a caravan of people and herds of sheep, cattle, goats, and other assorted animals. We were hauling all our belongings from Ur, which is down near the Persian Gulf. We headed westward up toward the two great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates.

After more than two months of traveling, Abram and Terah, his father, decided to stop at Haran, a busy city at the major crossroad on the trade route from Asia to the Great Sea coast. Terah had become ill on the long trip, so Haran seemed like a good place to stay for a while. I assumed that once we were settled, I’d get pregnant and have my first child. Well, that didn’t happen.

We ended up staying there many years until Terah died at the ripe old age of 205. Lot, Abram’s nephew, stayed with us until we buried Terah, and then he helped us prepare for our trip down to Canaan, the original destination promised to us by Abram’s God. Being older, we couldn’t hurry as fast as we had when we left Ur. We still had a lot of stuff to move in addition to all we had picked up in Haran. But there was one thing missing—we still didn’t have a child. I think I had given up on that ever being a possibility in spite of what Abram said his God had promised—a son to him.

Before we left, I bought a young, attractive slave girl to be my personal handmaid. I realized that I was joining the elite group of women who had their own handmaidens. That made me a little bit satisfied. Nevertheless, I would rather have had a son.

I had no idea about the time all this traveling would take. The trip to Canaan was a four-month journey by caravan down to Shechem on the far north side of another great sea, which looked as though it were dead. Abram built an altar there and listened again to his God’s voice, saying that he was promising to give this land to his children. Promises again! I had heard about enough of these promises. I just wanted to settle down, but I had the feeling that this wasn’t our last stop on the way to wherever Abram’s God wanted us to be.

I was right. That wasn’t our last stop. (We were the moving-est family I have ever heard of!) The next place we pitched our tents was in Bethel, but we were only there temporarily until we went farther south to the Negev. Unfortunately, there was a horrible famine in the entire region, so we went even farther down—into Egypt. (One thing for sure, I was getting to see a lot of the world!) Egypt had some problems for us though—and at least one that involved me.

Abram can be so sweet and dear! He thinks I am still a beautiful woman, and he worried about losing me to a man who had more to offer than he had. The upshot of this was that Abram, in order to save his own life, said I should say that I was his sister if the pharaoh, a very powerful man, insisted that I live with him. Oh, no! That’s exactly what happened. (I think I’d better take another look at myself in the mirror.) In time, Pharaoh came down with some serious diseases, as did his entire household. In the end, it all worked out. The pharaoh discovered our ruse and kicked us out of the palace, saying to Abram, Take her and go!

I don’t know how he did it, but during the time we were in Egypt, Abram acquired more animals in addition to some silver and gold. The good news of this was that we could keep all that Abram had acquired while we were in Egypt. (They must have been extremely happy to see us leave.) So back toward Canaan we went, and Lot, Abram’s nephew, was still with us. A son he wasn’t, but at least he was some company for my husband even though he meant more work for me and our servants.

To me, it seemed as though we drifted around the desert, packing up and unpacking, first to Bethel, then over to Ai, and that’s where there was some trouble between our herdsmen and those of Lot. Abram and Lot decided to split up and each go his own way. Lot looked over the landscape and realized that the Jordan River was more fertile and well-watered, so he took the prime real estate for himself, his family, and all his possessions and moved to one of the cities, Sodom.¹ That’s a story for another time.

Lot ended up in trouble with some kings who wanted his land, his home, and his flocks. It never ends—trouble, I mean. The kings absconded with Lot and all he had, and they took off for the north country. Of course, it was up to Abram to rescue him and bring him back to the Jordan Valley. I didn’t go on that long journey—been there, done that. I had had all the traveling I needed in my life.

Abram had another spat with a king who wanted me to live with him. This story was similar to the story involving the pharaoh, and again we were told to go home and never come back. (By the way, I looked in my mirror and was flattered that my husband thinks I am still beautiful.) I must cook him a special meal—one of his favorites! How about lamb shank and rice?

However, still no heir to our fortune! I finally took matters into my own hands and figured out a way to make this happen. I thought I’d help Abram’s God—just a little. Since it is an accepted custom in our part of the world, I offered Abram a way out of our predicament by giving my maidservant, Hagar, to him so he could have a child. It worked out as I had planned, and Ishmael was born. That was just the result of my practical intuition hard at work, and I’ll admit, the result of more than a little impatience and annoyance with Abram’s God!

Did I say it all worked out? It did, but not well at all! Hagar, my servant, started to get quite uppity with me because she had a child and I didn’t. I couldn’t stand having her in the same place with or even near me. It became so unbearable having her around that I suppose I let my feelings get the best of me and took out my anger and disappointment on her. One morning, she wasn’t there when I awoke. The other servants told us she had run away. Good riddance!

The worst part in this whole scheme was that since Ishmael was Abram’s son, it appeared that the promise that Abram’s son would be the beginning of a great nation would be fulfilled through Ishmael. God had never said anything about me having a son. Oh well, Hagar was gone—or so I thought. However, back she came saying that God had told her to return to me. I now have a beef—or a camel—with Abram’s God. How could he do this to me?

About the time I was getting mentally adjusted to this new arrangement, I became pregnant, had a son, Isaac, and was as happy as a person could be. Of course, I was about ninety years old by now, but this made me feel much younger. I finally came to accept that Abram’s God could also be my God. He came through when I was sure it was just Abram’s pipe dream to get me to move and put up with all the troubles I had endured over the many years of travel, moving all over the world, and even being forced to live with a king or two. Forgive me if I sound like a drama queen.

When we had the weaning party for Isaac, Ishmael, who was now fourteen and becoming quite a man, stood on the sidelines and began to mock and laugh at the three of us. I watched him, finally went to my husband, and demanded that Hagar and her son be sent packing. I did not want my son to be associated with that teenager ever again. Later Abram told me this had put him in one of the most distressing moments and hours of his life. He loved Ishmael. He had taught him all about farming, husbandry, and the care of our animals. The two had grown close to each other over the years—had fished together, played games together, and together had discussed and solved problems of the land that together they held. Both assumed that all they could see would someday belong to Ishmael. Now I had asked Abram to forget all that and disown his own son. I think he and I started to grow apart during this entire ordeal—he grew tired of my complaining about not having a child, then about Hagar, and then I added Ishmael to my complaint mix.

Abram told me to send Hagar and her son away, so I did. We later heard that she and her son almost died in the wilderness without food and water. Abram had packed a lunch for them and a skin of water. However, that was quickly gone. After all, Ishmael was a teenager, and I found out from Isaac when he became one how fast an adolescent boy can demolish a basket of lunch. We heard later from a traveler that they survived in the Desert of Paran and that Ishmael had become an archer, and Hagar had gone down into Egypt to find him a wife. That was one chapter of my life about which I have strong mixed feelings, thoughts, and some guilt.

Finally, just when Isaac was approaching adolescence, and I thought the world and we were settling down, Abram surprised me with another announcement. He and Isaac were heading north to Mt. Moriah² for a special event, which would only last for a few days. He said God wanted him to make a sacrifice on that mountain, which actually wasn’t much of a mountain, but a strange, skull-shaped hill.

I didn’t know what was to have been sacrificed until they returned from the trip. Isaac was to have been the sacrifice. If I had known that before they left, I would have gone berserk, and would have stayed crazy for the entire week they were gone. I was so prepared to let my husband, Abram have a piece of my mind, but then he told me that God had put a ram in the bushes by the altar and told my husband to sacrifice the ram instead of Isaac. That sounded silly to me until I heard the rest of the story. God was pleased with my husband’s commitment and obedience to Him and repeated the promise that Isaac would be the father of a new nation that would bless the entire world and whose inhabitants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. God also told him that my name was changed to Sarah, which means, to rule. At the same time, Abram’s name was changed to Abraham.

I never had any grandchildren to hug, hold on my lap, or tell my life’s story to, but I rested easier knowing that our God would be taking care of Isaac and all his children and all the generations that would follow. I only hope that those inhabitants, those generations to come, as numerous as the sands of the seashore, will be the blessing to the world as God promised, and that the nation will be as faithful to God as Abraham was. We made some mistakes—most of them were my mistakes—but we learned that God is faithful in forgiving us our errors as we learned to put our trust and our futures in his hands.

We also learned that when we felt that God intended for us to do something or go somewhere, He expected us to do and to go.

Biblical background: This story is based on the biblical account found in Genesis 11–23. The account of Sarai (Sarah) is one of the earliest accounts in the Bible. Abraham and Sarah are the parents of the Jewish nation going back to the latter years of the Middle Bronze Age, 2200–1550 BC. Read more about these two early lovers in the book of Genesis.

Scripture: Genesis 11:26–25:18

Reading: Genesis 12:1–6

Discussion possibilities:

1. Describe how Sarai must have felt about her life and its demands and moves.

2. Identify some issues we might face that would put us in similar situations as that in which Sarah found herself.

3. How did Sarah deal with all the many changes in her life?

The Wrong Mother for a Promised Son

Voice of Hagar

What happened to us? Why did he do this to us? What can I do now to save us? Where is his God now when we need him? How can I get him to listen to me, or will he ever listen to me? These questions lie in my head like the dried-up, dead bushes all around me in this God-forsaken desert. There’s my teenage son lying whimpering under that bush that gives him almost no shade from this hideous sun, and there isn’t any water to heal our parched tongues or to cool our dry bodies. We rationed the water that Abraham sent with us, but it’s gone. The desert is just too big—all we can see is sand and a few scrub bushes that are as thirsty as we are.

It’s a rather long, sad story, and to be honest, I guess I was a contributor to what happened and to this predicament we are in. I learned the background from my mistress, Sarai, soon after she bought me before the trip she and Abram took from Haran down to Canaan.

They both promised me that they would be good to me. The master seemed like a good man, who prayed to his God often. His wife, Sarai, told me that her husband, Abram, had a message from his God to leave their home in Ur of the Chaldees and strike out for the west. I guess something like, Go west, young man, go west! Abram seemed like a good guy, and his wife … well, I’m still not so sure about her. Sometimes she was good to me, but lately, not so good!

Abram’s father, Terah, was in Ur and went with them to Haran, along with Abram’s nephew, Lot. Lot was something else—young, impetuous, and ready to go for broke at the drop of a headpiece. I never knew Terah, but if I had, part of my duties would have been to nurse him back to health when they arrived in Haran. He had taken ill on their long trip between the great rivers, Tigris and Euphrates, from Ur over to Haran. He didn’t recover but died, and the family buried him a little north of Haran. After Terah’s death, Abram’s God told him to head south to the land of the desert, the Negev, to the land that he would show him, and make it his and his descendants after him.

His descendants? He doesn’t have any—at least, none that I have seen. I should have suspected something was up when I heard the two of them talking and talking about having a son. It seemed to me that whenever they had more than a few minutes together, that’s all they talked about. But what? A son? They had to have been kidding. They’re old! I know enough about such things to know that a woman of her age can’t have children. Are they nuts, crazy, or just dreaming?

Sarai devised a plan, dubiously a manipulative plan that I doubted would work, but she convinced me that I would be happy with her plan if it worked out as she figured it would. I went along with her plan. A plan? A scheme? Whatever it was, it wasn’t good except in Sarai’s head. I wasn’t sure about the whatever it was, but Sarai convinced me that she knew best.

You see, it was customary in our land for a servant girl to have a child with the master, if his wife couldn’t bear a child. I had no choice in the matter. Sarai talked Abram into the scheme, and as usual, he went along with her. Apparently, Abram’s God had promised them a son, and this was the only way that Sarai figured it was going to happen. It was a plan, and I think Sarai was the schemer. What I couldn’t understand was, if Abram’s God was so great, where was He in all this planning?

Then you can probably guess what began to occur. I am ashamed, but I started playing one-up-womanship with Sarai now that she and I both knew I was having her husband’s child. Our relationship quickly went from good to bad to worst. Sarai, of course, blamed Abram for the entire problem and told him to take care of the whole thing. He wiggled out of it by telling his wife that I was her slave and this was her problem, and to do whatever she wanted to do. Her response? To make life miserable for me. I couldn’t take it anymore, so I ran away from them. Well, not exactly ran. Remember, I was pregnant!

We kept Abram’s God busy—one of his angels found me in the desert and told me to return to Sarai. The angel promised me too that my child would be a son and would be like a bucking bronco of a man, doing a lot of fighting and being a trouble maker. He would be hostile to almost everyone, and everyone would be hostile to him. I’m not sure how