Month: August 2021

Week 32 Job

The intro to Job’s story says: one day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan the Accuser came with them.
Which really made me wonder.
It looks like what happened was that the Lord was somewhere (exact location unknown) and his angels came to meet with him. And Satan showed up too.
I don’t know much about Satan but I know he’s considered to be The Big Enemy. So I wonder why he was there in a gathering of angels. I wonder how he got in.
Anyway the Lord asked him: where have you come from?
And Satan replied: I have been going back and forth across the earth, watching everything that’s going on.
I wonder what to make of the Lord talking with Satan. Wonder why Satan was surveilling the world. Wonder if that was something he does.
There’s a lucky cross-reference in my bible from Job 1 to a verse in the NT: watch out for attacks from the Devil, your great enemy. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for some victim to devour.
Peter implies that Satan’s checking-out-the-earth function isn’t like a vacationer admiring the Grand Canyon. He says that Satan is: a) an enemy; b) just like a wild lion; c) in hunting mode; and d) looking for victims to kill.
What Peter says helps. But the story in Job still leaves me wondering.

Note: quote from Job 1:6, 7 and 1 Peter 5:8 (NLT)

Week 32 Malachi

I think it’s kind of normal for a bible reader to have – after he’s read 378-pages of prophetic warnings – a hopeful expectation that the small group of Jews who have come home from Babylon to start over again have…you know…learned-their-lesson.
But Malachi doesn’t give you that feeling. Right away he starts recording observations about current religious practices. The pattern is pretty simple: the Lord makes a comment and the people reply by disagreeing with the Lord’s comment.
A good example is where the Lord says he loved the people and they say: how have you loved us?
In another example the Lord says they despised his name: how have we ever despised your name?
The Lord says they offered defiled sacrifices: how have we defiled the sacrifices?
The Lord says X and they say Y…
Why has the Lord abandoned us?
How have we wearied him?
How can we return when we have never gone astray?
When did we ever cheat you?
How have we spoken against you?
It’s probably safe to say that the returned exiles had learned some lessons. For example they didn’t seem to be worshipping Molech any more. Or going up to the high-places. Still…Malachi – one of the last of the prophets – closes the OT leaving you with a strong sense that Israel still had a number of lessons to learn.

Note: quotes from Malachi 1:2, 6, 7 2:14, 17 3:7, 8, 13 (NLT)

Week 32 Zechariah

In chapter seven men come and ask Zechariah: should we continue to mourn and fast each summer on the anniversary of the Temple’s destruction, as we have done for so many years?
It seems like a straightforward enough question. You’d figure Zechariah’s answer-options would be either YES or NO.
Should we keep fasting? YES.
Should we keep fasting? NO.
But Zechariah doesn’t say YES or NO. Instead he’s off-on-a-tangent telling them there’s a problem with the quality of their fast: in your holy festivals, you don’t think about (the Lord) but only of pleasing yourselves.
It can’t be a simple YES or NO. It’s an answer conditioned by a circumstance.
Should we keep fasting? YES…if you can figure out how to do it right.
Should we keep fasting? NO…not if you’re going to keep doing it this way.
Let’s say a guy is doing dead-lifts and he’s using bad technique by bending his back. He comes to me and asks: should I keep training? Well I can’t really answer either YES or NO because there’s a glaring problem that directly affects the answer.
NO you should quit training (if you’re going to keep using that unhealthy technique).
YES keep training (but only if you correct your technique).
You can’t answer a non-straightforward question straightforwardly. You have to straighten up the question first.
Before what’s-the-answer comes what’s-the-real-question?

Note: quotes from Zechariah 7:3, 6 (NLT)

Week 32 Zechariah

There are eight visions in a row at the start of Zechariah’s book. Eight visions seemed like quite a few to me and I wondered where Zechariah would rank on the Total Number of Prophetic Visions Scale. Pretty high I’d guess.
As I read-through I was also wondering exactly what-all benefit Zechariah got from his visions. You’d tend to think that when a prophet had a vision-experience he’d gain some insight & understanding. But as I was reading I realized that these visions were pretty heavy on the perplexity side of things. And not just for me but for Zechariah because he asked a bunch of questions about what the visions meant. Even after re-reading them and – I think – figuring out a couple of things I still ended up mostly in the dark.
For now I’m just jotting down a couple of ideas about visions that I think are fairly accurate:
Visions are meant to be helpful & illuminating
But…some elements of visions aren’t too illuminating
The not-totally-illuminating visions – even when they do give me a bit of illumination –leave me with knowledge gaps
I’m guessing that some of these knowledge gaps might be permanent mental dead-spaces that I’ll have to live with
Some knowledge gaps might shrink as I gain more information or skill or smarts
Others gaps might only shrink over – maybe – long stretches of time as more events unfold & history moves along.
Which means I’ll have to be cautious not to speculate on visions.

Week 32 Haggai & Zechariah

When I read Haggai and Zechariah one-after-the-other I realized that both men dated some of their prophesies to the second year of the Persian king Darius (they even specified the month and the day). Haggai said that he prophesied on (Y:M:D) 2:6:1, on 2:7:21 and then again on 2:9:24.
By itself that’s not too interesting and didn’t catch my attention but when I got to Zechariah I noticed that he prophesied on 2:8:?, and 2:11:24.
That means both of the prophets were speaking to the people in Jerusalem during the exact same time period. They even kind of tag-teamed their messages in this order: Haggai-Haggai-Zechariah-Haggai-Zechariah – over a period of about six months.
Not only that – I fortunately noticed a cross-reference to Ezra that reminded me of something I read way back in May: at that time the prophets Haggai and Zechariah…prophesied in the name of the God of Israel to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem. Zerubbabel…and Jeshua…responded by beginning the task of rebuilding the Temple of God in Jerusalem. And the prophets of God were with them and helped them.
So I got two good reminders today:
1) a bible-reader can sometimes unexpectedly discover bible characters who knew each other (for all I know Ezra’s Zerubbabel & Jeshua might have had lunch with Haggai & Zechariah)
2) hundreds of pages separating bible books don’t necessarily mean hundreds of years of time-separation.

Note: the dating notes are in Haggai 1:1, 2:1, 2:10 & Zechariah 1:1, 1:7. Quote from Ezra 5:1-2 (NLT)

Week 31 Zephaniah

In the OT the Lord is portrayed as being supreme.
But what if someone decided he wasn’t supreme? What were his options?
I usually figure that when Israel started worshipping other gods they just left the Lord in the dust. Dumped him and moved on. And that was one of the options. Zephaniah refers to people: who used to worship (the Lord) but now no longer do. So…past tense.
But that’s not the only option. Zephaniah says there were also people who: go up to their roofs and bow to the sun, moon, and stars. They claim to follow the Lord, but then they worship Molech, too.
So there are two options. The first is that you subtract the Lord entirely. Then I guess you can worship another god or several gods. In this case your Personal Religious Equation looks something like this: god #1 + god #2 + god #3 + god #4 = my gods.
The second option is that you can keep the Lord in the mix. That equation adds an extra value: god #1 + god #2 + god #3 + god #4 + the Lord = my gods.
Zephaniah’s recommended OT balance is: The Lord = My God. His view was that if I start adding extra values to the equation I end up with an unequal-equation.

Note: quotes from Zephaniah 1:6, 5 (NLT). (Added note: theoretically there’s a no-god option but it wasn’t common, and the elements couldn’t be formulated too easily into an equation.)

 

Week 31 Habakkuk

The first words out of Habakkuk’s mouth are How Long?
The big question he raises in his book is like this – ok…the Lord is right in punishing Judah’s evil-actions. But how much retributive violence will the Lord let Babylon get away with …and how long will they get away with it?
In Habakkuk the prophet complains to the Lord twice and the Lord answers him twice. In the first answer the Lord tells Habakkuk something that’s a bit counter-intuitive. The Lord says: I am raising up the Babylonians to be a new power on the world scene. Hmmmm…the Evil Empire is evil because being evil is who they are…but they’re becoming an empire because the Lord is elevating them. Becoming a world power isn’t an accident.
The second answer the Lord gives Habakkuk relates to Time: How Long? The Lord says a couple of things:
These things I plan won’t happen right away. Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches…
The time is coming…
Babylonian captives will eventually say: at last justice has caught up with you!…
Soon it will be your turn…
For the time will come when all the earth will be filled…with an awareness of the glory of the Lord.
Habakkuk’s complaint about evil and suffering is totally understandable.
Where he got fouled up was in thinking that the Lord didn’t much care. Or thinking the Lord would never get around to doing anything about it if he did care.

Note: quotes from Habakkuk 1:6, 2:3, 6, 16, 14 (NLT).

Week 31 Micah

In chapter five Micah predicts: but you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, are only a small village in Judah. Yet a ruler of Israel will come from you, one whose origins are from the distant past.
That verse has a NT cross-reference in my bible. King Herod asked the religious teachers in Jerusalem: where did the prophets say the Messiah would be born?
I don’t know how Herod knew about the Messiah. But when he asked the religious teachers they knew who he was referring to and told him the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem – they quoted Micah: O Bethlehem of Judah, you are not just a lowly village in Judah, for a ruler will come from you who will be the shepherd of my people Israel. This means that by NT times people were calling the unidentified person in Micah The Messiah.
Micah says some things about the Ruler that are a bit vague and could refer to other people. That he’ll work for the Lord. That he’ll lead people. That he’ll bring peace. But Micah also says one thing that is a definite geographic test. He’ll be born in Bethlehem. Micah’s Ruler has to be born in Bethlehem.
Since I got to the prophets in April I’ve read a lot of forecasts that might be read one-way-or-another. But this one in Micah is solid – The Messiah has to be born in the little town of Bethlehem.

Note: quotes from Micah 5:2 & Matthew 2:4 & 6 (NLT).

Week 31 Joel

There’s a pioneer story about an insect plague in 1860s Minnesota: green grasshoppers of all sizes were swarming everywhere and eating. The wind could not blow loud enough to hide the sound of their jaws, nipping, gnawing, chewing. They ate all the green garden rows. They ate the green potato tops. They ate the grass, and the willow leaves, and the green plum thickets and the small green plums. They ate the whole prairie bare and brown.
Right at the beginning of his book Joel shouted out his own Grasshopper Sermon because millions of middle-eastern grasshoppers had come to Judah: after the cutting locusts finished eating the crops, the swarming locusts took what was left! After them came the hopping locusts, and then the stripping locusts, too!
Joel one sounds like a real description of real locusts. But chapter two sounds like a real description of a real army of human grasshoppers about to clear-cut Jerusalem.
Joel’s prepare-for-the-worst message to Judah sounds pretty definite. But it isn’t iron-clad definite. Joel adds this: return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful. He is not easily angered. He is filled with kindness and is eager not to punish you. Who knows? Perhaps even yet he will give you a reprieve, sending you a blessing instead of this terrible curse.
So against the odds there’s still a chance.

Note: quotes from Laura Ingalls Wilder On the Banks of Plum Creek (NY: Harper & Row; 1971) 261; and Joel 1:4 & 2:13-14 (NLT)