Having Fun with Habakkuk

Just finished two days on Habakkuk, which is much better than two day old halibut. What really surprised me this time around was the amazing description of God in 1.12-14 and again in chapter 3.  I wonder how much our perspective on God would change if we only stopped to read and consider what these small books at the end of the Christian Old Testament actually say about God.  Here's the snippets.

 Are You not from  everlasting, 

O LORD, my God, my Holy One? (1.12, NAS95)

Your eyes are too  pure to  approve evil, 

And You can not look on wickedness with favor. (1.13)

LORD, I have  heard  the report about You and  I  fear. 

O LORD,  revive  Your work in the midst of the years, 

In the midst of the years make it known; 

In wrath remember mercy.  (3.2)

His  splendor covers the heavens, 

And the  earth is full of His praise. (3.3)

He stood and surveyed the earth; 

He looked and  startled the nations. 

Yes, the perpetual mountains were shattered, 

The ancient hills  collapsed. 

His ways are  everlasting. (3.6)

You went forth for the  salvation of Your people, 

For the salvation of Your  anointed. (3.13)

God is Everlasting and Pure, Full of Mercy and Majesty. He stands for his people, not against them.  What a concept to consider God Almighty from a prophet's viewpoint.

What is Justice?

Sorry for the delay. Teaching Greek for a year gets me out of the habit of posting relevant comments.  Now we are in the Minor Prophets. What a refreshing change, both for myself and for my students. I think some are adding to their view of God every day.


What is Justice? Great question.  It is NOT social justice, it is NOT economic justice, it is NOT (add your modifier here) justice.  Those are small subsets but are NOT justice. Amos 5-6 is a great place to look for justice. Amos 5:7 starts, "You who turn justice to wormwood, and cast down righteousness to the earth" while Amos 6:12 ends "But you have turned justice into poison, and the fruit of righteousness into bitterness." If all the parallelism of Hebrew Poetry hasn't made it clear, this inclusion passage should make it clear: Justice IS Righteousness.  


God is righteous, God is just.  Righteousness and Justice are what the righteous and just ones do.  Justice is what God does.  The people of God are to act like God. It really is that simple.


What's the problem? Views of God held by an individual that are contradictory, especially to the biblical text.  More on that later.

Summertime Thoughts

Last Saturday it was a wedding.  Next Monday it is a funeral.  What do the two have in common? Both are filled with hope.  The wedding takes a couple of mid-aged people and tries to join them and some teenage and older children into a single family unit.  It takes hope to even try such a thing.  The funeral takes a family who is devastated by tragedy and grasping at hope, hope that there is a future, hope that God is merciful, hope that tragedy won't strike others.

Why is it that when faced with the need for hope humans turn to religion, in this case Christian religion?  Why do they think that hope is available for them?

More importantly, what does the Christian church in 2011 have to offer humans who are daily beset with tragedy: tornadoes, floods, lightning strikes, bullets, cars? The list goes on.  The message of the church may be on sin and forgiveness, often tempered with a change of living.  But why do individuals turn to the church?  Does the church of 2011 practice hope?

Paul did say, "But now, Faith, Hope and Love remain, these three things: But love is the greatest of these." (1 Cor 13:13).  The Church is to practice love.  That message is clear. The church is to demonstrate Faith.  That seems apparent.  Where is the teaching on Hope today?

Colossians

Just the other day, my notorious colleague James Bryan Smith, asked me a question about Colossians 2, and started me thinking. So I thought I would ramble about my synaptic patterns for a moment or two.

My comments have to do with the way in which we separate Scripture from itself in order to serve our own agendas, rather than recognizing Scripture as "canon" and allow it to speak for itself. Then we take the Scripture and say "here is what it means" because that is what the words say.

So, Col 2:8 says "Watch out lest you become a captive" and proceeds to list several possibilities for enslavement. The KJV starts 2:9 with "For in him dwelleth all the fulness . . .", a famous trinitarian statement.

The issue is that it is so easy to take the trinitarian and Christological statement in 2:9-14 and discuss what it has to say about Jesus in the Godhead, etc. However, then we have separated it from Scripture. 2:9 serves as a "because" statement to explain the 2:8 statement. "Watch out . . . because . . ." The entire rhetorical purpose of 2:9-14 is to help the audience understand why they shouldn't become captives. It describes who Christ is, who they are, and what God has done for them, including canceling the certificate of debt that would lead one into slavery!

My random thoughts lead me to the conclusion: Don't forget who you are and how you got there, or else you are likely to end up back where you started!!! In Christ we are NEW. So if we are NEW and dead to the old way, why go back to it??