Scripture Notes: I Am Too Young! (Jeremiah 1)

Jeremiah was a young man, perhaps still in his teens, when God called him to a prophetic mission. Imagine Jeremiah’s surprise when he heard God’s voice for the first time, the voice saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

To Jeremiah’s credit, he believed the message. He understood what God was asking. But he certainly didn’t think he was the right person for the job. “I do not know how to speak,” Jeremiah protested, “for I am only a youth.” I’m too young to be a prophet!

God didn’t scold Jeremiah for this. But He knew Jeremiah far better than the young man knew himself. God simply told His reluctant prophet not to say that he is too young, for God will be the One in control of this mission. God will do the sending. God will tell the young prophet what to say. So Jeremiah should not be afraid, for, as God assured him, “I am with you to deliver you.”

So Jeremiah said yes. God touched the young man’s mouth, giving Jeremiah His words and telling him that He has set him “over nations and over kings, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.” In other words, Jeremiah would be God’s agent of sorts, bringing God’s message to Judah and to the whole world, and that message would entail both discipline and restoration.  

The call of Jeremiah reminds us of some critical truths. First, God has a plan for us, and He has had that plan for all eternity. Second, He calls each and every one of us personally. Third, when God wants us to do something, He gives us the grace and the strength to do it, guiding and protecting us always. We, however, must be open to His gifts. Fourth, God has always been, is now, and will always be with us because He loves us.

Scripture Notes: A Message to Pergamum (Revelation 2:12-17)

Pergamum, a city in Asia Minor, was a center of pagan worship at the time John received the prophetic vision he recorded in the Book of Revelation. And Jesus had a very forceful message for the Church at Pergamum, a message with good news and bad news.

The Christians in Pergamum lived in the city “where Satan’s throne” was. Pergamum was home to a massive temple of Zeus (the “father” of the Greco-Roman “gods) and the cult of a snake-god, and it took an active role in promoting emperor worship. Yet, Jesus said, many of the city’s Christians remained faithful, all the way to death if necessary. That’s the good news.

However, there was a bit of bad news, too, more than a bit. Some Christians were compromising their faith. It was a struggle to be a Christian in a pagan world. Pagan worship dominated social life, and those who refused to participate were treated as outcasts or worse. Families turned their backs on Jesus’ faithful. Christian artisans lost business because they could not participate in the rites of the pagan guilds that regulated trade. Even Christians’ lives were at risk if someone denounced them to the government officials and they were commanded to worship the emperor or else.

So it became easy to backslide, especially when some people in the Church (probably the Nicolaitans mentioned in the text) were telling their fellow Christians that it was okay to participate in some level pagan worship, particularly to eat food sacrificed to idols. This would have allowed Christians to participate in guild rituals and family gatherings.

But there was a problem with it. It was backsliding. It was compromising. It was disobeying Jesus’ words. And therefore, Jesus told the Christians who were doing it and teaching it to repent, literally to go beyond their minds, to let go of their own thoughts and embrace His will. Otherwise, there would be consequences, possibly eternal consequences.

Jesus, however, held out a beautiful promise, an amazing promise, to those Christians who were victorious in Him, holding fast to their faith and refusing to compromise. He would give them some of the hidden manna. What is this hidden manna? The Eucharist. Jesus’ very self, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. The Eucharist is our ultimate intimacy with Jesus in this life and a foretaste of Heaven, when we will see Him face to face.

Jesus did not end there, though. He also said that He would give of the faithful a white stone with a new name on it. In pagan culture, people needed an admission ticket of sorts to enter into the festivals and rites. Often it was a small stone. Jesus would one-up that. He would give a white stone, a pure stone, as an admission ticket, not to a pagan feast but to the Heavenly feast, the eternal banquet of divine love. And that stone would have a new name written on it, a name known only to the Giver and the recipient, a name symbolizing a new life and a new, even greater intimacy with God, eternally.

Scripture Notes: The Trouble With Absalom (2 Samuel 18)

King David’s son Absalom turned out to be trouble. With a combination of vanity and hunger of power, Absalom decided that he should have the kingship instead of his father, and he tricked the people of Israel into supporting him. David actually had to flee from Jerusalem, mourning the painful betrayal by his own son.

Soon war broke out between David and Absalom. David had no choice but to fight, but he made his wishes clear with regard to his son. The young man was not to be killed. No matter what Absalom had done, David still loved him and was determined to spare his life.

As the battle progressed, David’s army took the upper hand and put Absalom’s followers to flight. Absalom, riding along on his mule, ended up in major trouble. He always had an obsession with his hair, so it is more than a little ironic that his hair (probably highly styled) caught on the branches of a big tree. The mule kept right on going, leaving Absalom hanging by his hair.

This would have been funny (and rather is in any case) but for the results. One of David’s men noticed Absalom’s predicament and hurried to tell David’s commander, Joab. Joab asked the man why he didn’t kill Absalom outright. He would have had a fine reward. But the man remembered David’s orders; he wouldn’t touch the king’s son for any money. 

Joab, disgusted, grabbed three darts and put them directly into Absalom’s heart as the young man hung helpless from the tree. Some of the young men in Joab’s company finished off the prince and threw his body in a pit in the forest. Joab thought he had won a great victory, but he was forgetting something important.

When David heard that his son was dead, he broke down and wept, crying out, “O my son Absalom, my son, my Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!” The army’s victory crumbled, and the men crept back to the city like dogs with tails between their legs. The king’s grief shamed them.

But Joab was more disgusted than ever. He approached David with a dose a reality. David’s servants had saved the king’s life and reign by their courage that very day, yet David appeared anything but grateful. Joab essentially told him to stop carrying on and go out and talk to his people with gratitude and encouragement. Otherwise, the king would have no people by nightfall. Joab even dared to tell David, “I perceive that if Absalom were alive and all of us were dead today, then you would be pleased.”

It was harsh, but there was truth to it. Yes, Joab had disobeyed the king’s orders, but apparently he didn’t regret it. And he did have a point about David’s less-than-kingly behavior. The situation was complex and dangerous. If Absalom had lived, what would David have done? Simply let him go? No, rebellion could not be ignored; it had to have terrible consequences, as troubling as that may have been.

Scripture Notes: “I Am No Prophet” (Amos 7)

Amos spoke a stern warning against the Northern Kingdom of Israel. In the years since the North split from the South, ten northern tribes from two southern ones (Judah and Benjamin), the North had drifted (perhaps ran) far into idolatry. Its rulers did not want the people returning to the Temple in Jerusalem for worship, for they feared a movement toward reunion and their subsequent loss of power.

So those rulers set up new sanctuaries in the North, two of them, one at Bethel and the other at Dan, and they put an idol in each of those sanctuaries, a golden calf. This was obviously a serious backslide on the part of the Israelites, a deliberate return to their apostasy years ago in the desert as they were leaving Egypt. The Israelites went back to worshiping the gods they had worshiped in Egypt, blended with the gods of the pagan peoples around them. The one God they were not worshiping was God Himself.

So God called Amos to speak up and say so. God called him to be a prophet. And people hated Amos for it. In fact, one of the priests of the Northern Kingdom, Amaziah by name, essentially told Amos to get lost, to go to Judah and never prophesy at Bethel again. It was the “king’s sanctuary,” the priest announced haughtily, and “the temple of the kingdom.” Indeed, and that was the whole problem. It was not God’s sanctuary or God’s temple but the work of human beings who had decided to worship idols.

Amos replied, “I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son.” He was a simple shepherd who cared for both sheep and sycamore trees until God called him. The whole prophet thing was decidedly not his idea, but he loved and trusted God and therefore obeyed Him. And Amos would continue to do so no matter what the consequences to himself. He would continue to tell the Israelites of the Northern Kingdom that God was highly displeased and would punish them if they failed to repent of their idolatry and return to Him. Amos had to speak with tough love when he said, “Israel shall surely go into exile away from its land” on account of its sins. And he was right.