Theological Commentary: Click Here
Amaziah
reigns after Joash has died. I find the
Biblical account of Amaziah intriguing.
The Bible begins this passage by saying that he was a good king. He walked in the ways of Joash, whom the
Bible also calls a good king.
However,
Amaziah has some issues. First of all,
Amaziah, like his father before him, allows the high places to continue to
exist. He doesn’t take on the Ba’al
worship at its core. He doesn’t
encourage it to grow, but he doesn’t take it on, either.
Second,
Amaziah foolishly challenges Israel to a fight and loses badly. In fact, it ultimately leads to his
death. He is impulsive in this and doesn’t
show much wisdom. He certainly seems to
be following his own desires instead of God.
However,
there is a neat lesson here in spite of the fact that after saying Amaziah is a
good king the Bible doesn’t have much good to report. The neat lesson is that it does remind us a
bit of David. Yes, David walked closer
to God and his story is laced with faithfulness and momentary lapses of
sin. But the greater point is that God
overlooks our sin and our weakness.
Amaziah doesn’t look good on paper after the initial statement. But that’s not how God remembers him. God remembers him as a good king. That’s great news for us. We don’t need to be perfect. We simply need to pursue God. We can have our faults like Amaziah’s
impulsiveness and God can still love us and us.
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