I first wrote this post for the E100 Bible Reading Challenge. It was first published on the E100 blog in 2011.
‘See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,’ says the LORD Almighty. - Malachi 3:1
Central to the prophecy of Malachi, the last Old Testament prophet (a century after the exile in Babylon; probably around the time of Ezra and Nehemiah) is the concept of covenant. In a series of ‘debates’ or disputations, Malachi accuses the people of being unfaithful to the covenant which God made with their ancestors at Sinai.
They clearly think God doesn’t love them, but he points them back to the fact that he chose them to be his special covenant people (1:2–3). The problem, in fact, is not with God but with them. Malachi challenges their half-heartedness, expressed in their second-rate offerings and their lack of commitment to human covenants, particularly marriage.
Malachi also points forward to a day when God would be worshipped around the world (1:11) and to the coming of the One who would bring that about (3:1). After the exile, the Jerusalem temple had been rebuilt, but the people sensed that God had not returned to it. Malachi sees his coming as great news for those who trust God (4:2), but judgment for those who don’t. So the Old Testament closes with a sense of great expectation, which would be fulfilled by the coming of Jesus four centuries later.
I first wrote this post for the E100 Bible Reading Challenge. It was first published on the E100 blog in 2011.
Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before. – Daniel 6:10
Daniel was a teenager when he was exiled to Babylon in 605 BC. Seven decades later, he could look back on a lifetime of God enabling him to thrive in a pagan context. He had even become one of King Nebuchadnezzar’s most important advisors. Then the Babylonian empire was seized by the Persians, and a new face ruled Babylon: Darius.
Darius’s plan to promote Daniel to the highest level provoked a hostile reaction from the old man’s colleagues. Was is simply jealousy, or did they find his absolute integrity a threat to their own behaviour? Either way, Daniel’s scrupulousness yielded no mud for them to sling at him.
Daniel’s response to their strategy of exploiting his faithfulness to God reveals the source of his character. He was utterly trustworthy because God had the first place in his heart. Nothing, not even the certainty of death, would deflect Daniel from his devotion to God. And nothing would make him hide his spirituality; it was a life of godliness lived in full view of others. This had been the pattern of Daniel’s life since he arrived in Babylon, and God had honoured his wholehearted commitment by making him a powerful blessing in a pagan world. He’s a fantastic model for Christians in contemporary society.
I first wrote this post for the E100 Bible Reading Challenge. It was first published on the E100 blog in 2011.
Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. – Jonah 2:8
God told Jonah to take a message far beyond the borders of Israel, to Nineveh, one of the greatest cities of the ancient world. But Jonah didn’t want this assignment, for reasons which only become apparent later. We assume it’s fear which made him board a ship heading in the wrong direction. But it’s not.
After being thrown overboard and swallowed alive by a huge fish, Jonah prayed from within its belly. He praised God’s compassion in rescuing him – even though it couldn’t yet have felt very much like deliverance (2:5–6). Jonah realised that God is at work since his new circumstances were clearly miraculous. More importantly, he understood that God is gracious, even towards those who deserve his anger.
Ironically, this was precisely his problem with his mission. He recognised that his announcement of judgment on pagan Nineveh was conditional on his hearers’ response. Jonah knew that, if they repented, God would show them grace and relent from destroying them. But Jonah clearly resented the idea of pagans receiving mercy and was furious when that is precisely what happened.
Jonah claimed to know God, who is ‘gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love,’ yet there seems to have been little sign of these qualities in his own life. He tragically failed to comprehend that the very reason God had blessed Israel was for that blessing to extend to every nation.
I first wrote this post for the E100 Bible Reading Challenge. It was first published on the E100 blog in 2011.
My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water. – Jeremiah 2:13
God called Jeremiah to be a prophet while he was still a youth, probably around 627 BC. These were the dying days of the dynasty that began with King David four centuries previously. Jeremiah announced, and experienced, the devastation of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587 BC (1:15). He was to say whatever God commanded (1:7,17), however hard that might be, and not to be afraid of his audience – though he had good reason to be (1:19).
Jeremiah’s message was unsparingly critical. The heart of it was that the people had abandoned God, despite everything he had done for them. Several centuries previously, the Lord had miraculously rescued them from slavery in Egypt, established a covenant relationship with them, protected them and given them the promised land of Canaan.
And yet it had all turned so sour. The people had turned their backs on God and embraced worthless idols (2:11). Jeremiah graphically compares them with prostitutes and animals on heat. The perversity of their behaviour is enough, says God, to make the universe shudder with disgust (2:12). Yet we, too, commit idolatry whenever we look to something other than God to meet our deepest needs. In our cravings for other things, we, too, forget God. Jeremiah forcefully reminds us that to do so is the height of stupidity.
I first wrote this post for the E100 Bible Reading Challenge. It was first published on the E100 blog in 2011.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. – Isaiah 53:6
By the eighth century BC, Judah (the southern kingdom following Israel’s split into two) was in a moral mess. Isaiah announced that they would therefore face severe judgment at the hands of the Assyrians and, later, the Babylonians, including exile for many. But a remarkable reversal comes in the second part of the book, when Isaiah starts promising liberation.
In a series of intensely moving passages known as the Servant Songs, Isaiah reveals that God will rescue his people through his Servant. It becomes increasingly clear that he is also talking about something much bigger than rehabilitating the nation. Isaiah has in view both a liberator in the not-too-distant future, when God will once again comfort his people (51:3,12; 52:9) and bring them home (51:11), and a greater saviour through whom God will eventually do something far more remarkable (52:13ff).
Astonishingly, Isaiah anticipates the Servant dealing with the fundamental problem of human sin. Even more unexpectedly, Isaiah sees this Servant actually bearing the punishment deserved by those who have asserted their independence from God. It’s a rescue which goes way beyond Judah to embrace all nations (52:9–10,15). As the New Testament writers recognised, (e.g. 1 Peter 2:22–25) it is an extraordinary prophecy of Jesus who came to bear our sin on the cross.
This brilliant animation is a real labour of love – many hours spent moving and re-shelving books to make this.
HT Dick Staub
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Louie Schwatzberg shoots beautiful images, particularly time-lapses. Here’s a 10-minute talk from TEDx in San Fransisco in which Schwatzberg focuses on the extraordinary beauty of the world around us. He wants us to fall in love with the world because, he says, ‘We protect what we fall in love with’. The latter part of [...]
This article was first published on Culturewatch. © Tony Watkins, 2011
Brad Pitt as Billy Beane in Moneyball. Image © Sony Pictures Releasing
Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) sits brooding in the empty Oakland Coliseum stadium. He switches on his radio to listen for a few moments to the commentary of a baseball game, [...]
This is a repost to coincide with the cinema release of The Twilight Sage: Breaking Dawn (Part 1)
This article was first published on Culturewatch.org. © Tony Watkins, 2010.
Vampires are currently one of the biggest phenomena in popular culture. They are central to hit television series like True Blood, Being Human and The Vampire Diaries, but [...]
A good warning from xkcd about the hazards of references in the online world:
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This article was first published on Culturewatch.
Craig Roberts in Submarine (image courtesy Optimum Releasing. © 2011)
‘Maturity is a high price to pay for growing up.’ Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts) would probably agree with Tom Stoppard’s wry comment. Oliver is fifteen years old and anxious to be grown up, yet struggling with [...]
This article was first published on Culturewatch.
Peter Mullan as Joseph in 'Tyrannosaur' (dir. Paddy Considine). Image courtesy of StudioCanal.
Life in a broken world is deeply unjust. Some people breeze through life with material security, happy marriages and hardly a care in the world. Others struggle through every [...]
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