I've been putting together my notes for OT2 and this is such a huge question, covering all of the Former Prophets.
1. Rebellion against the Lord.
This began even as Moses led them out of Egypt: 'the whole community grumbled' (Ex 16:2). They spent 40 years in the wilderness because of this!
At the end of the book of Joshua, he gives the people a strong reminder that they need to obey the Law (Josh 23:6). If they fail, the consequence will be exile:
'If you violate the covenant of the Lord your God, which He commanded you, and go and serve other gods... the Lord's anger will burn against you, and you will quickly perish from the good land He has given you.' (Josh 23:16).
During the time of the Judges, as Joshua's generation dies, 'another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what He had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals.' (Judges 2:10-11). Consequently, they were routed by their enemies and God raised up Judges to save them. 'Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshipped them.' (Judges 2:17)
Even the Judges themselves were dubious heroes; Gideon lacked decisive faith and made a golden ephod which became a snare to Israel, Jephthah made a rash vow which resulted in him killing his own daughter, and Samson's life was full of compromise instead of being a true Nazirite.
The ending of the book shows moral chaos in the gruesome story of the Levite and his concubine, which threatens to destroy the unity of Israel by causing civil war and the near cutting-off of the Benjaminites.
2. Lack of godly leadership.
The chaos in Judges is attributed to the fact there is no king; 'everyone did as they saw fit' (Judges 21:25).
The people in 1 Samuel demand a king. As Samuel presents Saul to them, he gives them a solemn warning:
'if both you and the king who reigns over you follow the Lord your God- good! But if you do not obey the Lord, and if you rebel against His commands, His hand will be against you.' (1 Sam 12:14-15)
No sooner is Saul declared king than he goes against God's Word and offers up the burnt offering himself instead of waiting for Samuel, the priest. Samuel tells him that because of this his kingdom will not ensure and God has sought out 'a man after his own heart' (1 Sam 13:14). Saul repeatedly tries to do things his own way, instead of obeying God. In the rest of 1 Samuel, we see his deterioration into madness, paranoia and murderous thoughts towards David, despite David's righteous conduct and refusal to touch the Lord's anointed (see 1 Sam 24).
When David finally becomes king, and he is the best of the kings, he commits adultery and murder in a terrible sequence of events (2 Sam 11).
The majority of the kings in 1 & 2 Kings commit terrible acts in the eyes of the Lord, and lead the whole nation into apostasy. Ahab, king of Israel, did more evil than all before him (1 Kings 16:30). He and his wife Jezebel persecute Elijah and install Baal worship as the norm. Even after the glorious display of God's power at Mt Carmel, they remain unchanged.
3. Ignoring the Prophets.
Not only does the dramatic revelation of the reality of God as Lord leave Ahab unmoved, but repeatedly he is shown to ignore and despise God's prophets.
In one incident, a prophet comes to tell him that God will give him victory over Ben-Hadad (King of Aram), and Ahab decides to let the king go. In another incident, Ahab desires Naboth's vineyard (which, according to the distribution of the land and to the inheritance laws, he had no right to claim), and allows Jezebel to have Naboth killed so that he can seize it. Elijah comes to rebuke him for this dreadful action, and Ahab greets the prophet by calling him his 'enemy' (1 Kings 21:20). God says through Elijah 'you have aroused my anger and have caused Israel to sin' (1 Kings 21:22), and the incredible thing is that Ahab does then humble himself. In great mercy, God decides to bring disaster upon Ahab's son instead of Ahab himself.
And yet how much has Ahab really changed? Not much it seems, because when the godly king Jehoshaphat of Judah comes to help him against the king of Aram, Jehoshaphat insists upon seeking counsel from a 'prophet of the Lord', not just a phoney prophet who says whatever the king wants to hear. Ahab acknowledges that there is a true prophet, but he hates him because he never prophesies anything good about him (1 Kings 22:8). Jehoshaphat's reply 'The king should not say such a thing' highlights how wrong Ahab's attitude is towards the prophets and thus towards God, as the prophets speak God's Word to him.
4. Forgetting the Law.
In Josiah king of Judah's day, the Book of the Law is found as they repair the temple. This is a sad indication of how God's Word has been forgotten over the reigns of so many godless kings. Josiah is a great reformer, but he recognises that it is too late: they stand under God's wrath for disobeying His commands (2 Kings 22:13), which the prophet Huldah confirms.
5. Lack of godly parenting.
'Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen... Teach them to your children and to their children after them.' Deut 4:9
Closely linked to the people forgetting the Law is the fact that parents were not training their children in the ways of the Lord, and this is why there was so much moral chaos and apostasy.
Even the God-fearing men were at fault here: Eli was challenged by God ('why do you honour your sons more than Me?' 1 Sam 2:29) and David did not have effective control of his family- the incident of Amnon raping his half-sister Tamar, and David's lack of decisive action to intervene which causes Absalom to act in bloody vengeance, is a prime example of this (2 Sam 13).
6. God keeps His covenant promise.
God had made it clear that if Israel were not obedient, He would send them into exile. That is why the exile happened.
'Therefore the Lord rejected all the people of Israel; He afflicted them and gave them into the hands of plunderers, until He thrust them from His presence.' 2 Kings 17:20
And yet, in all of this, there is hope in God's grace. Not all the kings were bad (Josiah and Hezekiah stand out as really godly leaders), and Isaiah prophesies the future fall of Sennacherib (king of Assyria) in 2 Kings 19, and reminds the people that God is in control:
'Have you not heard? Long ago I ordained it. In days of old I planned it; now I have brought it to pass.' v25
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Thursday, December 24, 2009
What can we learn from Judges?
I'm currently ploughing through the Old Testament 2 module of the Moore course, and I've been reading the book of Judges. It's a very gruesome book and sometimes it's hard to know what we're meant to make of all the goings-on: concubines being cut up into twelve pieces and sent to all the tribes of Israel and heroes like Samson who don't seem to care much what God thinks and do whatever they like.
In many ways the book of Judges says more by negative example than positive. I don't think we're meant to read it and follow Gideon's example of laying fleeces before God: time and again he lacked faith and faffed around instead of getting on with what God had clearly told him to do. And yet this is true of many biblical 'heroes' like Abraham and Jacob- the Bible doesn't shrink from telling us all their mistakes and howlers such as Abraham's failure to tell people that Sarah was his wife repeatedly. But God chose to work through flawed people- and God still does that today. Hooray for that! Otherwise none of us would have any hope.
Judges really emphasises that God chooses the nobodies of this world and gives them grace to do what He has called them to do. Many of the book's judges were called to be brave and courageous (just as Joshua was in a previous generation) in a hostile political environment where Israel was attacked on every side and struggling to establish itself. God did marvellous things, by His mercy. It definitely was not a reward for good behaviour, because Israel broke every rule in the book.
It can make for depressing reading when you see how Israel were stuck in a cycle of turning away from God and doing their own thing. No matter how many times God intervened to rescue them, they still worshipped Baal (the pagan god) and showed little faithfulness to the One who had saved them. Samson epitomises this: he was a Nazarite, set apart to live for God, and throughout his life he struggled with his calling. He spent most of his life making rash decisions, chasing after various Philistine women, and reacting in angry violence whenever he was offended. In the same way, Israel as a whole chased after foreign gods and then blamed God for all the rubbish stuff that happened as a result. God had told them that unfaithfulness would bring destruction and eventually exile. Time and again they refused to listen.
As Christians there is perhaps a strong message here to keep ourselves separate from the corrupting influences of the world around us. As Israel's history proves, tolerating ungodly ideas and practises soon leads to participating in them. We need to take a bold stance and place a filter over our TVs and be careful what influences us.
Ultimately we should rejoice in the fact that God has saved us. In sending Jesus, He sent the perfect One who could deliver us for ever from death, sin and the devil. All these human leaders in Judges point towards the much greater Saviour who would come many years later. If there's one thing that Judges teaches us, it's that we can't save ourselves.
In many ways the book of Judges says more by negative example than positive. I don't think we're meant to read it and follow Gideon's example of laying fleeces before God: time and again he lacked faith and faffed around instead of getting on with what God had clearly told him to do. And yet this is true of many biblical 'heroes' like Abraham and Jacob- the Bible doesn't shrink from telling us all their mistakes and howlers such as Abraham's failure to tell people that Sarah was his wife repeatedly. But God chose to work through flawed people- and God still does that today. Hooray for that! Otherwise none of us would have any hope.
Judges really emphasises that God chooses the nobodies of this world and gives them grace to do what He has called them to do. Many of the book's judges were called to be brave and courageous (just as Joshua was in a previous generation) in a hostile political environment where Israel was attacked on every side and struggling to establish itself. God did marvellous things, by His mercy. It definitely was not a reward for good behaviour, because Israel broke every rule in the book.
It can make for depressing reading when you see how Israel were stuck in a cycle of turning away from God and doing their own thing. No matter how many times God intervened to rescue them, they still worshipped Baal (the pagan god) and showed little faithfulness to the One who had saved them. Samson epitomises this: he was a Nazarite, set apart to live for God, and throughout his life he struggled with his calling. He spent most of his life making rash decisions, chasing after various Philistine women, and reacting in angry violence whenever he was offended. In the same way, Israel as a whole chased after foreign gods and then blamed God for all the rubbish stuff that happened as a result. God had told them that unfaithfulness would bring destruction and eventually exile. Time and again they refused to listen.
As Christians there is perhaps a strong message here to keep ourselves separate from the corrupting influences of the world around us. As Israel's history proves, tolerating ungodly ideas and practises soon leads to participating in them. We need to take a bold stance and place a filter over our TVs and be careful what influences us.
Ultimately we should rejoice in the fact that God has saved us. In sending Jesus, He sent the perfect One who could deliver us for ever from death, sin and the devil. All these human leaders in Judges point towards the much greater Saviour who would come many years later. If there's one thing that Judges teaches us, it's that we can't save ourselves.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Old and New Covenant: What's the Difference?
It's always a danger that we, as Christians, use complicated terms from the Bible without really understanding what they mean, as well as being totally unintelligible for the world outside. The trap of Christian jargon is sometimes really difficult to escape from. Salvation, atonement, penal substitution... All these words mean wonderful things and yet can also be very confusing.
As I study for my Moore College Christian Worship module, I have been looking at the Old and New Covenants of the Bible. And 'covenant' is one such jargon-word. It basically means 'promise', but it does have more weight than that. In Bible times, an oral culture where the spoken word was much more meaningful and binding than in today's world, a covenant was serious business. It involved conditions. It was not easily broken.
The Old Testament relates to us how God called the people of Israel into covenant with Him (having made a covenant with Abraham, and they were his descendants). On Mount Sinai He gave them the Law, and the essence of the covenant was this:
'Love the LORD your God and keep his requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always.' Deuteronomy 11:1
The conditions were that if Israel followed God's commands and stayed faithful to Him, He would give them a land flowing with milk and honey, and rest from all their enemies. But if they failed, then He would send famine and drought, routers, and eventually send them into exile. And sadly, this is what actually happened. After the exile, a remnant returned, but it was clear that Israel had problems with keeping the covenant because the post-exilic prophets (such as Malachi) spoke of their continued corruption and failure to obey God.
It is into this situation -a crushed people under the Roman empire, a disobedient people who had failed to keep God's law- that Jesus came. And with Him, He brought what is known as the New Covenant: a new way of relating to God.
Jesus changed:
The PLACE of worship
The MEANS of worship
Let's unpack that.
In the Old Testament, there were two important central places of worship. First, there was the Tabernacle (built under Moses in the time of being in the wilderness). This was a sort of tent, a central meeting place, where the Ark of the Covenant (a box containing the 10 Commandments and the Law) was kept. It was where God's presence dwelled- this is why Exodus ends climactically with the cloud of God's presence filling the place (Ex 40).
Once Israel had claimed the Promised Land and achieved rest from their enemies, the Temple was built (under the direction of Solomon, David's son). This was a much more permanent building, lavishly constructed, and provided the central place of worship where sacrifices were offered.
Jesus changed all of this by REPLACING the temple (place of worship), along with the sacrifices (means of worship). By offering Himself, dying an innocent death on the cross, Jesus paid the price for our sins, once for all. His blood justifies the guilty (Rom 5:8-9). There is no need now for any more sacrifices to be made. Jesus' sacrifice was enough to pay for all sins: past, present and future.
'He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him.' (Heb 7:25)
So Jesus IS the sacrifice, but Jesus is also the TEMPLE itself. The Temple represented God's rule, and God's will to bless Israel and other nations through them. In Jesus 'one greater than the temple' arrived (Mt 12:6). He embodied God's presence and authority, because He was the Son of God. In Him we find salvation and through Him all nations can be blessed (this is how God fulfilled His promise to Abraham from Genesis 12). We don't need a temple now to access God, because we have Jesus. This is why the Temple curtain was torn from top to bottom when Christ died on the cross (Mt 27:51).
True Christianity is all about presenting ourselves to God IN JESUS CHRIST. It's about coming to God, knowing you have NOTHING TO OFFER Him except a sinful soul, and asking for His forgiveness which is available to you THROUGH JESUS' SACRIFICE.
But once we have done that, we CAN offer God our lives. Romans 12:1 teaches that we are to become 'living sacrifices'- not trying to win our own salvation or our place in heaven by doing good things, but demonstrating in our LIFESTYLE that our relationship with God has been restored, and we are RIGHTEOUS in His sight (absolutely pure). Every sphere of our lives as Christians gives us the opportunity to glorify and serve God, in grateful response to the work of Jesus.
Therefore we "worship" not only in times of singing songs and reading the Bible and praying, but in obedience, loving others, showing hospitality, being faithful in marriage, witnessing to others (see Hebrews and Romans 12-15). Our worship is much more than what we do in church on a Sunday, or in our daily "quiet time" or personal devotions to God. It is our whole life.
That is not necessarily ABSENT from the Old covenant. God made it clear that He wanted His people to love Him all of the time, not just on a Sabbath day. He made it clear through the prophets that sacrifices were worthless unless they were accompanied by true repentance (1 Sam 15:22). But Jesus brought a whole new experience of worship for us, because He revealed to us in His very person the TRUTH about God, and He sent us His SPIRIT to aid us in crying out to God in our hearts (Rom 8:15). This is what Jesus meant when He said:
"Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." John 4:23-24
In Jesus we see a full revelation of who God is, because Jesus is 'the exact representation of his being' (Heb 1:3). In Jesus we not only receive a new PLACE of worship (ie. in Himself, not in a physical building), and a new MEANS of worship (through His sacrifice), but we also receive a full picture of the GOD we worship. We can worship Jesus because He is God; He is part of the Trinity, the three-person God who is Father, Son and Spirit. And as Christians, our aim is to bring others to worship Christ and make Him their own Lord and Saviour.
As I study for my Moore College Christian Worship module, I have been looking at the Old and New Covenants of the Bible. And 'covenant' is one such jargon-word. It basically means 'promise', but it does have more weight than that. In Bible times, an oral culture where the spoken word was much more meaningful and binding than in today's world, a covenant was serious business. It involved conditions. It was not easily broken.
The Old Testament relates to us how God called the people of Israel into covenant with Him (having made a covenant with Abraham, and they were his descendants). On Mount Sinai He gave them the Law, and the essence of the covenant was this:
'Love the LORD your God and keep his requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always.' Deuteronomy 11:1
The conditions were that if Israel followed God's commands and stayed faithful to Him, He would give them a land flowing with milk and honey, and rest from all their enemies. But if they failed, then He would send famine and drought, routers, and eventually send them into exile. And sadly, this is what actually happened. After the exile, a remnant returned, but it was clear that Israel had problems with keeping the covenant because the post-exilic prophets (such as Malachi) spoke of their continued corruption and failure to obey God.
It is into this situation -a crushed people under the Roman empire, a disobedient people who had failed to keep God's law- that Jesus came. And with Him, He brought what is known as the New Covenant: a new way of relating to God.
Jesus changed:
The PLACE of worship
The MEANS of worship
Let's unpack that.
In the Old Testament, there were two important central places of worship. First, there was the Tabernacle (built under Moses in the time of being in the wilderness). This was a sort of tent, a central meeting place, where the Ark of the Covenant (a box containing the 10 Commandments and the Law) was kept. It was where God's presence dwelled- this is why Exodus ends climactically with the cloud of God's presence filling the place (Ex 40).
Once Israel had claimed the Promised Land and achieved rest from their enemies, the Temple was built (under the direction of Solomon, David's son). This was a much more permanent building, lavishly constructed, and provided the central place of worship where sacrifices were offered.
Jesus changed all of this by REPLACING the temple (place of worship), along with the sacrifices (means of worship). By offering Himself, dying an innocent death on the cross, Jesus paid the price for our sins, once for all. His blood justifies the guilty (Rom 5:8-9). There is no need now for any more sacrifices to be made. Jesus' sacrifice was enough to pay for all sins: past, present and future.
'He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him.' (Heb 7:25)
So Jesus IS the sacrifice, but Jesus is also the TEMPLE itself. The Temple represented God's rule, and God's will to bless Israel and other nations through them. In Jesus 'one greater than the temple' arrived (Mt 12:6). He embodied God's presence and authority, because He was the Son of God. In Him we find salvation and through Him all nations can be blessed (this is how God fulfilled His promise to Abraham from Genesis 12). We don't need a temple now to access God, because we have Jesus. This is why the Temple curtain was torn from top to bottom when Christ died on the cross (Mt 27:51).
True Christianity is all about presenting ourselves to God IN JESUS CHRIST. It's about coming to God, knowing you have NOTHING TO OFFER Him except a sinful soul, and asking for His forgiveness which is available to you THROUGH JESUS' SACRIFICE.
But once we have done that, we CAN offer God our lives. Romans 12:1 teaches that we are to become 'living sacrifices'- not trying to win our own salvation or our place in heaven by doing good things, but demonstrating in our LIFESTYLE that our relationship with God has been restored, and we are RIGHTEOUS in His sight (absolutely pure). Every sphere of our lives as Christians gives us the opportunity to glorify and serve God, in grateful response to the work of Jesus.
Therefore we "worship" not only in times of singing songs and reading the Bible and praying, but in obedience, loving others, showing hospitality, being faithful in marriage, witnessing to others (see Hebrews and Romans 12-15). Our worship is much more than what we do in church on a Sunday, or in our daily "quiet time" or personal devotions to God. It is our whole life.
That is not necessarily ABSENT from the Old covenant. God made it clear that He wanted His people to love Him all of the time, not just on a Sabbath day. He made it clear through the prophets that sacrifices were worthless unless they were accompanied by true repentance (1 Sam 15:22). But Jesus brought a whole new experience of worship for us, because He revealed to us in His very person the TRUTH about God, and He sent us His SPIRIT to aid us in crying out to God in our hearts (Rom 8:15). This is what Jesus meant when He said:
"Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." John 4:23-24
In Jesus we see a full revelation of who God is, because Jesus is 'the exact representation of his being' (Heb 1:3). In Jesus we not only receive a new PLACE of worship (ie. in Himself, not in a physical building), and a new MEANS of worship (through His sacrifice), but we also receive a full picture of the GOD we worship. We can worship Jesus because He is God; He is part of the Trinity, the three-person God who is Father, Son and Spirit. And as Christians, our aim is to bring others to worship Christ and make Him their own Lord and Saviour.
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