The tension mounted. Sweat beaded on lips. Legs shimmied in anticipation. A dozen boys sat clutching thick black books, totally alert, waiting for a signal. Finally hearing the clue, the race began, only finishing with the proper reading shouted in response.

As a kid I attended a Sunday School class, and every week we begged for one specific activity—a sword drill.

If you’ve never participated in a sword drill, you’ve missed a highlight of middle-school religious fervor. The leader shouts out a reference, players chase through their Bibles (the sword of the Lord), and the winner reads the verse out loud first. With no electronic devices available, kids dove in, tearing pages and shouting out answers. Victors crowing and losers dreaming of what might have been. Glorious biblical chaos.

At some point in our drills the teacher always requested Obadiah chapter one, verse one. He did this one every time, to the point that many of us had the verse memorized, and the best drillers kept a finger on the text. We yelled the words even before the page emerged in our King James Bibles:

The vision of Obadiah. Thus saith the Lord God concerning Edom; We have heard a rumor from the Lord, and an ambassador is sent among the heathen, Arise ye, and let us rise up against her in battle.

Years later I thought, I got a handle on the first verse, but I wonder what the rest of Obadiah says? Turns out, the prophet Obadiah wrote a message of condemnation from the Lord against Edom, a people who took pleasure at the downfall of Jerusalem. Their time was coming—as you have done, it will be done to you; your deeds will return upon your own head. The Lord eventually sets things right and best be prepared.

Obadiah’s book consists of two pages in my Bible. So obscure, it requires a search from middle-schoolers and even adults who study the Bible regularly. But the message should not remain obscure. Oppose the people of the Lord, fight against the God’s ways, and eventually you’ll reap what you’ve sown.

A solid lesson for sword drillers of any age.

Obadiah in reading the Bible in 2023

Photo by Humble Lamb