Medicine Hat Joe

Week 27  Isaiah 7

I’m reading about Ahaz in chapter seven. Ahaz was one of Isaiah’s four kings (the prophecy begins: these visions concerning Judah and Jerusalem came to Isaiah son of Amoz during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah).
Uzziah Jotham Ahaz & Hezekiah are familiar names. In May I looked at all of the kings of Judah and ranked them Best-to-Worst. So I flipped back to that list to see where I’d placed Isaiah’s four:
Uzziah #8
Jotham #3
Ahaz #14
Hezekiah #2.
So Ahaz was 14th out of 15 kings. Not so good.
Isaiah didn’t give specific details about Ahaz’ numerous flaws (I had to reread Kings & Chronicles to see those).
What Isaiah did do was forecast Ahaz’ future: the Lord will bring a terrible curse on you, your nation, and your family…The mighty king of Assyria will come with his great army (plus eight more verses describing Judah’s national devastation).
But the thing is that rereading the Ahaz story I saw that the king of Assyria did not demolish Judah the way Isaiah described it. Sure…Ahaz ends up being a yes-sir-no-sir guy subject to Assyria. But Judah wasn’t demolished. That only came later – after Ahaz was dead & gone.
So it’s a reminder to me that I have to be careful about predictive prophesies. Isaiah’s forecast sounded like an exclusive just-for-you-Ahaz message. But it looks like Ahaz was just part of a longer range comprehensive future of the country over the next forty-or-fifty years.

Note: quotes from Isaiah 1:1 7:17 (NLT)

Week 27  Isaiah 1

Isaiah tells Judah: you act just like the rulers and people of Sodom and Gomorrah. The verse catches my attention because I already have a niggling question about Sodom & Gomorrah. I’ve been wondering about what specifically bad things S&G did that qualified them for annihilation. The Genesis 18-19 story only comments generally about how awful the two cities were.
So now I see Isaiah comparing Israel to S&G. He says Judah is just like S&G. If Judah is acting just like S&G then I can answer my question about what S&G were like by looking at Judah. If I find out how Judah was being just like S&G then I’ve found out what S&G was like.
Isaiah compares Judah to S&G this way: your hands are covered with the blood of innocent victims.
Isaiah goes on to list five things Judah should be doing (things that S&G should have done too):
Learn to do good
Seek justice
Help the oppressed
Defend the orphan
Fight for the rights of widows.
So I’m discovering some useful specific things about S&G. It’s a good start.
But when I grab a word book I see that even though S&G are mentioned twice in chapter one Isaiah only refers to them two more times in the next sixty-five chapters.
I’m a bit disappointed. I thought Isaiah would helping with my S&G question. But I’m not all that surprised. It’s not my first good question that didn’t get answered.

Note: quotes from Isaiah 1:10 16-17 (NLT)

Week 26  Nahum 1

If I owned a company that manufactured religious plaques I would Never Ever use this verse from Nahum: the Lord is a jealous God, filled with vengeance and wrath. He takes revenge on all who oppose him and furiously destroys his enemies.
I would be aiming at wall-hangings that were a little more inspirational. Like this other verse from Nahum: the Lord is good. When trouble comes, he is a strong refuge. And he knows everyone who trusts in him.
So my sign production company could use Nahum’s verse-seven (nicer & reassuring & more consolatory) but not his verse-two (somber & harder-edged & fearsome).
Of course I don’t have a religious sign business. But I still think about the different ways the Lord is described. The Wall Plaque Verses have their pluses. The Lord is softer and more pliable. Manageable. Flexible. Malleable. And there’s quite a few like that. But I need to remember that that list is an exclusory one: accurate as far as it goes…inaccurate as far as it doesn’t.
So here in Nahum I pay attention to verse-two and verse-seven. His more comprehensive list says that the Lord is good and he knows the people who trust him. And also that the Lord is jealous and he destroys his enemies.

Note: quotes from Nahum 1:2 7 (NLT). End of month reading review: June wasn’t a smooth-as-glass month for me & I lost ground. But fortunately I’m still ahead: 50% of the year gone & 52% of the bible read.

Week 26 Obadiah

Obadiah didn’t prophesy to Israel. His prophecy was to the country of Edom (one of Israel’s National Enemies). A couple of connected ideas caught my attention.
#1: Obadiah told Edom: as you have done to Israel, so it will be done to you. So…what Edom had done to Israel would happen to Edom. Their violence would boomerang.
The exact details would play out a bit differently for Edom but the general contours of the outcome – the main things – would be the same: just as you swallowed Israel…you will swallow the punishment I pour out on you. From their perspective I don’t figure Edom had taken intentional steps to map out their own defeat. They just wanted Israel to get thrashed. Edom wasn’t trying – like Obadiah put it – to disappear from history, as though they had never even existed. But Obadiah was insistent that that would be the outcome.
#2: Obadiah told Edom: all your evil deeds will fall back on your own heads. The way he describes it it’s almost like Edom threw their evil deeds up in the air and – surprisingly & almost magically – their evils stayed airborne. Defied gravity. Hanging up there while Edom’s gloating plundering destructive intentions succeeded.
Obadiah’s bad news was that evil can’t stay aloft forever. Eventually Edom’s evils would lose their flotative witchery. Evil was coming back down onto Edom’s heads. Evil was coming home.

Note: quotes from Obadiah 15 16 (NLT)

Week 26  Jonah 1

The book of Jonah doesn’t really say much about the lives or interests or practices or customs of Iron Age sailors. But his short story shines some light on their religious sensitivities.
It’s pretty clear the sailors were already religious men before they knew about Jonah because as soon as the storm struck the desperate sailors shouted to their gods for help.
But however loyal they were to their gods as soon as Jonah admitted that the Lord was the cause of the storm the crew got a bit more religiously curious (the fact he was Lord of the Sea made him especially relevant). And they ended up praying to the Lord.
The sailor’s prayer was:
O Lord…don’t make us die for this man’s sin…
Don’t hold us responsible for his death, because it isn’t our fault
You sent this storm…for your own good reasons.
It was a good first prayer. The focus was on staying alive & on not being made responsible for Jonah’s death so the sailors said exactly that. And since they’d also figured out that the Lord was behind the storm they admitted that too.
For instructions on how-to-pray I’d normally think about looking through the psalms. But these guys had no time to do anything but blurt out their life-and-death concerns and confirming that the Lord was clearly in-the-driver’s-seat.
So… Two Quick Tips on Prayer: Say something personal about myself. And say something accurate about the Lord.

Note: quotes from Jonah 1:5 14 (NLT)

Week 26  Jonah 1

When Jonah went down to the port city and bought a ticket to Tarshish none of the ship’s crew knew he was renegading against the Lord (and at first he didn’t tell them). They only found that out when they were far out in the Mediterranean: as the ship was sailing along, suddenly the Lord flung a powerful wind over the sea, causing a violent storm that threatened to send them to the bottom.
In the modern world a marine weather forecaster looks at natural causes: wind & waves & atmospheric pressure & sea temperature – the usual meteorologically-calculable causes of ocean weather. But in Jonah’s case there was an added piece that a climate-guy wouldn’t have charted – the one about the Lord being Lord of Ocean Storms. Jonah should have known that. He would have read the psalm that said: the voice of the Lord echoes above the sea. The God of glory thunders. The Lord thunders over the mighty sea. But I guess he disregarded what he knew.
Anyway Jonah eventually admitted to the sailors: I am a Hebrew, and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land. If Jonah’s Lord was just Lord-of-the-land then…okay. But that extra bit about him superintending the ocean-deep changed things: the sailors were terrified when they heard this. “Oh, why did you do it?” they groaned .
Which when you get down to it was Jonah’s $64,000-Question.

Note: quotes from Jonah 1:4 9 10 & Psalm 29:3 (NLT)

Week 26  Jonah

I finished Proverbs yesterday and when I was done sat wondering what to read now. Technically it should be Ecclesiastes since it’s next. (And I have to keep Esther & Job in mind too since I skipped them at the beginning of the month). But I think I’ll read some of the Short Prophets for a bit of a change. I’ll see.
A couple of years ago I compared how each of the twelve Short Prophets started their books. The general rule was that in the first verse they identified themselves and said where the message was coming from (a vision or oracle or word from-the-Lord). Then in the second verse the majority of them jumped right in and started explaining the Lord’s message. But there were two exceptions to that general practice: Hosea and Jonah.
In the case of Hosea the Lord told him to go and marry a prostitute (which he did).
In the case of Jonah the Lord told him to get up and go to the great city of Nineveh (which he didn’t).
All the OT prophets seem to be strong individuals with their own qualities & gifts & styles & preferences & attitudes & convictions & temperaments. But Jonah is a real maverick. A decisive opinionated strong-willed non-conformist who took action to flat-out disobey the Lord.
Of all the stories of prophets Jonah’s is the best (from a story-reader’s viewpoint). And that’s where I started today.

Note: quotes from Hosea 1:2 & Jonah 1:2 (NLT)

Week 25  Proverbs 28

Whoever trusts in himself is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom is kept safe.
So Solomon points out a contrast here. It’s between a) trusting in myself & b) walking in wisdom.
I’m wondering especially about part a): Can I Trust Myself or Can I Not Trust Myself? The end-point of Solomon’s advice is that I need to walk-in-wisdom. But it begins as an exercise in not-trusting-myself.
The problem is that if my options are between a) relying on what I personally think & b) deferring to some outsider that disagrees with what I personally think then that means I’d have to consider the possibility that my own ideas are flawed. That I could get better information somewhere else.
That’s a hard thing to do. I already have my own ideas about things and it’s easiest to just run with them. What are the chances that I’ll start being suspicious about my own ideas?
And even if I do start having some self-doubt and I’m thinking about shifting my confidence over to some other view there’s a whole bunch of options to think about and sift through.
Solomon’s recommendation (his point b)) is to choose the Lord’s Wisdom.
But before I ever get around to hitching-my-wagon to Wisdom I have to deal with Solomon’s Step #1: Doubt Yourself. And that’s a supremely hard thing to do.

Note: quote from Proverbs 28:26 (NIV)

Week 25  Proverbs 14

Solomon said: faithless people will be fully repaid for their ways, and the good person rewarded for his.
This idea has cropped up before in Proverbs. The idea that what I do now has an effect on what happens to me later. The idea of getting reimbursed for what I’ve done.
It’s Solomon’s Compensation Rule: I do something…I get something back in return. The rule works in all kinds of ways. A simple example is if I find someone’s wallet and return it the person will be happy (and I might get a reward).
But Solomon is talking about indemnification on a bigger scale too. A couple of chapters ago he said: the truly righteous person attains life, but the person who pursues evil goes to his death. So the Compensation Rule is scaled all the way from a lost-wallet right up to the question about “what’s going to happen when I’m dead?”
Solomon figures something is going to happen. I check a cross-reference that says the Lord is watching and he will judge all people according to what they have done.
I feel a bit concerned thinking about a perpetual but undetectable compensatory dynamic that’s in operation. But in the last couple of years I’ve been tracking the idea more carefully and Solomon isn’t the only one talking about it. When I’m reading through the bible it seems like some component of this day-of-reckoning idea keeps coming up again-and-again.

Note: quotes from Proverbs 14:14 11:19 (NIV) 24:12 (NLT)

Week 24  Proverbs 11

This is a two-phrase proverb:
1) God rescues the godly from danger
2) God lets the wicked fall into trouble.
What’s similar in both phrases is the ‘danger’ or ‘trouble’ that two people are headed into. The big difference is the people…
Person #1 is a godly person who’s facing danger
Person #2 is a wicked person headed for trouble.
The question the proverb is asking is: ‘what does the Lord do about it?’
And the Answer is: ‘it all depends’. These are two very different people and that makes a big difference:
The Lord rescues Person #1
But he lets Person #2 fall.
With Person #1 the Lord takes preventive action – he intervenes. But with Person #2 he does nothing. No intervention. No preemptive action. He lets gravity take the falling guy where he wants to fall.
I like this proverb because it’s almost perfectly balanced (with some two-phrase proverbs the two phrases don’t really connect very well). But not this one.
And I like it because it’s a nice tidy generalization about how things tend to work. I don’t think it’s an Absolute & Ironclad Law. There are times when a person who reveres the Lord might end up deep in the Danger Zone. And there are times when a piratical brute lives a trouble-free life. But in general the Lord looks out for his people. And the others he lets fall.

Note: quote from Proverbs 11:8 (NLT). Added note: Proverbs 13:5 & 19:22 are examples of a couple of what I think are not-so-well-balanced proverbs.