Theological Commentary: Click Here
Discipleship Focus: Character
- Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person. It is hearing from God and obeying. It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.
I have found
a great change in me over the last decade.
I mourn when I come across chapters like this in the Bible. I used to get excited. Now I mourn.
You see,
when I was younger I got excited about chapters like this because I saw them as
a sign of God’s supremacy. These nations
rebelled, God judged. These nations went
against God’s people, so God brought vengeance upon them. I always saw these chapters in the light of
God’s supremacy, so they were good chapters in my book.
However,
then I grew up. I matured a bit. I learned that the prophecy of the exile has
more in common with lament than joy.
Does God celebrate that people turned away from Him? Does God celebrate when He gets to prove Himself
to be right? Does God celebrate the hard
human heart? Does God celebrate when we
are so proud we cannot humble ourselves before Him? No. He
does not. Yes, God judges the world; but
He does not judge in celebration when it comes to our failing character.
There is a
deeper level of mourning yet. If you
read the blog post I put up on this chapter from 3 years ago, you can get a
deeper sense of what I am about to say here.
Remember where these nations are located. These are all the surrounding nations. These are the nations to whom God had called
His people to reach with His love and grace and mercy. The reason I mourn here is because in the
failing of the Hebrew character we also see a failure in mission. Our character deeply affects our ability to
do mission.
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