Introducing our Advent 2021 series – 2 Thessalonians 1, Part 1

For this Advent season, I thought it would be good to study a lesser-known book of the Bible that relates to Advent.  This letter didn’t originally relate to Advent.  Advent was a season of the year that Christians created many years after this letter was written.  But because Advent mean “arrival,” I think you’ll see how this book is fitting. The book is one of the short letters in the New Testament, 2nd Thessalonians. 

You might wonder, “Why 2nd Thessalonians?  Why not start with 1st Thessalonians?”  Well, it’s simply a matter of space.  Advent lasts for the four weeks before Christmas, and four weeks is not enough to cover 1st Thessalonians.  But it’s perfect for 2nd Thessalonians which is much shorter, and basically has the same theme as 1st Thessalonians. So let’s dive in to 2 Thessalonians chapter 1.

In verse 1 we read “Paul, Silvanus and Timothy.”  Ancient letter writing started the opposite of how we start our letters or emails. We always start by addressing the person we are writing to. In the ancient world, the writer began by identifying himself. 

Who are Paul, Silvanus and Timothy?  Paul is the leader, the apostle, the missionary, the man who took the wonderful story of Jesus and spread it like no other in the first century, starting numerous churches across the Roman Empire. Silvanus is another name for Silas, one of Paul’s traveling companions.  Timothy was an apprentice of Paul who would go on to be a pastor of the churches in the city of Ephesus.  Many years later Paul would write 1 & 2 Timothy as letters to help Timothy in his pastoral ministry in Ephesus.  For now, these three men are mentioned as contributing to this letter, but Paul is likely the primary author.  If you glance ahead to chapter 3, verse 17, you can see that he picks up the pen and writes the ending.  As a result, for the remainder of the posts in this series, I will refer to Paul as the author.

He is writing to the Thessalonians. Who or what are the Thessalonians?  Keep your finger in 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, and turn to Acts 17.  There we read about the beginning of this specific church.  In Acts 17, Paul is on his second of three missionary journeys recorded in the book of Acts.  We read that he arrives in Thessalonica, which today is the city of Thessaloniki in Greece.  In the first century this was a major city of 200,000 people, the capital of its province. You can visit the ruins of the old city in Thessaloniki still today. 

There Paul shares the Gospel with the Jews and Greeks, and numerous people come to Christ.  We don’t know how long Paul, Silas and Timothy were there, but even if it was a very short time, Paul started the church. The Jews in town were jealous of Paul’s success, and almost certainly considered the Christians to be traitors who were starting a cult.  So they incite a riot, accusing Paul of being a government insurrectionist, and Paul and Silas have to leave Thessalonica under cover of night, and they head to nearby Berea.  But the Jews from Thessalonica find out that Paul has escaped to Berea, so they follow him there and agitate the Bereans against Paul.   

I tell you that to give you a sense of the kind of people that lived in Thessalonica.  The Jews, at least, not only disagreed with the Christians, they also aggressively pursued Paul, trying to stop him.  Imagine you are one of the Christians living in Thessalonica after Paul has been run out of town.  You are part of this new church that has just started.  In Acts 17:4, we learn who the people in the church actually were.  When Paul and Silas were initially preaching there in Thessalonica, “some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, so did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women.”  That was the church.  How many people?  Maybe 50?  Maybe 100?  It was a small group of brand new Christians.

The church was multi-ethnic, comprised of Jews and Greeks.  It also had socio-economic diversity, and it had gender diversity.  It was new, and likely most everyone in the church, if not all of them, were immature in their faith.  The Jewish members of the church would have had a background in their Jewish faith, which would have been immensely helpful.  Those new Christian Jews though, would have been considered apostate by the other aggressive Jews in town.  To what degree Paul was able to disciple the new Christians and build up leaders, we don’t know.  My guess is that he wasn’t there long.  That fact, and the fact that there were Thessalonian Jews so aggressively opposed to Christianity, probably had Paul very concerned that this new church was going to fall apart. 

So how does the letter of 2nd Thessalonians come to be?  Let’s continue the story by remembering Paul’s itinerary.  In Acts 17:1-9, he is in Thessalonica.  In verse 10 he travels to Berea, about 45 miles to the west.  As we heard above, in verses 10-15 we learn that it doesn’t seem he is in Berea all that long before the Thessalonican Jews track him down.  At least in Berea Silas and Timothy can stay to build up the believers, unlike the Christians in Thessalonica who were on their own.  If you are Paul, you’re thinking, “Okay…the Berean Christians are cared for, but I still need to do something about the group back in Thessalonica.”  Paul is a wanted man there, though, so he can’t go back.  Yet, as he writes in 1 Thessalonians 2:17, he longed to go back and visit them. 

As we continue following his itinerary in Acts 17, Paul next travels 200 miles south to Athens. After what seems to be a relatively short stay in Athens, in Acts 18:1 we read that he travels to nearby Corinth, 50 miles to the west of Athens.  As we skim through Acts 18, we learn that Paul is finally able to settle down a bit, staying in Corinth at least 18 months, but likely longer.  Silas and Timothy eventually join him there. But Paul has not forgotten the Thessalonian Christian. It really bothered him being apart from them, so at some point he sent Timothy, we read in 1 Thessalonians 3:1, to deliver the letter we know as 1 Thessalonians. Timothy eventually returns with news from Thessalonica. 

Will Timothy bring good news? Or bad news?

We’ll find out in the next post!

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The important connection between Sci-fi and Advent – 2 Thessalonians 1, Preview

How do you feel about science fiction?  Are you a sci-fi lover?  A sci-fi hater?

I love sci-fi.

I love pretty much any sub-genre within the larger sci-fi umbrella.  What’s not to love? Time travel, futuristic technology, spaceships, lasers, intergalactic travel, and of course, aliens.  Sci-fi has it all!  I recently started watching a new streaming TV series called Invasion, and the premise of the story is the question, “How would people really respond if powerful aliens attacked earth?”  To answer that question, the show follows the lives of four very different people in four very different places in the world as they react to the invasion.  But that’s show biz for you, where aliens are real.  They’re not actually real, though, are they?

Do you ever wonder if UFOs are real?  Unidentified Flying Objects made the news recently as the government has declassified documents, and there seems to be a movement to search for alien life!  Some people claim that our planet has been visited many times.  These most recent declassified documents include videos of Air Force pilots seemingly mystified by what they are seeing on their radar screens.  Objects in the air making movements and traveling at speeds that no human object is capable of.  Maybe it was just a fleck of paint on their camera being blown by the wind, or maybe an extra-terrestrial has been spying on us. 

Advent is the season of the year that reminds us that an extra-terrestrial has already arrived.  But not the extra-terrestrials of ET or Alien.  God has arrived.  In fact, Advent means “arrival”.  The Son of God, the Messiah, Jesus, arrived. God became flesh.

Advent also reminds us that Jesus is coming again!  That’s why our 2021 Advent theme is “Ready for the Return,” and we’ll be studying the New Testament letter of 2nd Thessalonians.  Why 2nd Thessalonians?  Because whenever you think of Advent, you obviously think of 2nd Thessalonians, right? 

Take a moment this weekend to read 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, or perhaps the whole letter, which is only 47 verses, to see if you can determine why this short letter might be the perfect study for Advent.  Then check back in to the blog on Monday as we’ll begin discussing 2 Thessalonians 1 and Advent.

Photo by Artem Kovalev on Unsplash

How to think Christianly about America (or any nation) – Ezekiel 29-32, Part 5

This week we have been studying the rise and fall of great powers, because we learned about the fall of Egypt as prophesied by Ezekiel in Ezekiel 29-32. In the previous post, we learned that in recent history, the rise and fall of great powers is controlled by economics. So we have to ask, what about God?  Isn’t God involved?  Does God decide which nations rise and which fall?  Does God want some nations to be great and others lowly?  What should we Christians think about this?

Remember the prophecy to Egypt in Ezekiel.  Their nation had been a regional superpower for centuries.  Now God declares that Egypt was going to fall, and it would not be great again. 

I write as an American, and much of what I have thought about Ezekiel 29-32 this week has clearly been colored by my context as an American. Christians in America have long had a somewhat confused understanding of the relationship between God and country.  What we see in this passage is that God desires to be in relationship with all people.  He is not interested in the rise and fall of great powers.  He is interested in people.  Nations come and nations go.  America rose and became a superpower, and it is possible that America will fall from that place, maybe in our lifetime, maybe a thousand years from now.  Maybe all that potentially scary news about China (which I started this week’s blog series with here) will come to pass and they will attack and defeat us.  We don’t know, of course.

In the Old Testament, God often talks about nations and their longevity.  We Americans can think that we want our preferred version of America to last forever.  Usually the version of America that we want to last forever is the version that benefits us.  But does God promise that any version of America will last forever?  No.  Instead there is a rise and fall of nations throughout history.  That is par for the course of world history.  What, then, is the Christian way to look at our citizenship in America? 

To answer that question, we need to jump over to the New Testament where we learn that we Christians see ourselves first and foremost as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven.  Our earthly citizenship is temporary, because every earthly country is temporary.  Even if USA doesn’t end in our lifetime, it will happen sometime.  But God’s Kingdom will never fall.  God’s Kingdom is eternal. 

Christians, therefore, should be focused on the Kingdom of God.  Our lives, our choices, our actions, should be to glorify Jesus and follow the pattern of life that he lived.  There were Christians living through all of the 1700 years before America was born.  Those Christians were disciples of Jesus, pursuing the mission of God’s Kingdom all around the world, and they did that without an entity called the United States of America.  How?  Because God’s Kingdom isn’t dependent on any nation.

But we are citizens of an earthly country. I am an American citizen. For my fellow American Christians, what does it mean, then, to think Christianly about our citizenship in America?  For those of you who are citizens in other countries, you can ask yourselves the same question. What does it mean to think Christianly about citizenship in your country? I have written about this in a previous blog series, staring here. But I also recommend that we strive to answer these important questions by remembering the perspective of God’s Kingdom.

We should want God’s Kingdom to come all around us.  Just as Jesus prayed: “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  We Christians, then, not only pray for God’s Kingdom to come wherever we live, but we also participate in ushering in the Kingdom.  When I say “usher in the Kingdom,” I am not talking about the goals of any political party.  Remember the Purple Church series a few months ago?  Jesus is neither red nor blue.  The church should be neither red nor blue.  The church should be purple, a place where people who lean red or blue can mix together focusing on God and making his Kingdom our priority.

We’re a purple church because God doesn’t want to be in relationship with a temporary nation.  He wants to be in relationship with people.  That’s why God’s Old Covenant was with the nation of Israel, but his New Covenant is with the church.  God is in relationship with his people, the church.  Our hearts, our goals, our decisions should flow from that perspective.

We, the church, then, strive to fulfill the mission of the Kingdom, no matter what country in which we hold earthly citizenship.  As we live in those countries, we desire to fulfill the Great Command and the Great Commission.  We also desire those nations to be places of goodness and human flourishing.  That’s why we Christians take the lead in pursuing equality, freedom, and justice, no matter where we live.  That means we should be active in rooting out injustice.  We follow the teaching of Jesus to love God, love neighbor, and help people become disciples of Jesus who can live the way of Jesus.  We are people who are filled with the Spirit, so that the fruit of the Spirit is flowing freely from us into the lives of others around us. 

Our hope is not in a political party.  Our hope is not in a geographic region on the globe.  Our hope is not in a form of government.  Our hope is not to make a nation great again.  Our hope is in the Lord.  Our passion is to make his name great.

As the Jews in Babylon learned from Ezekiel’s prophetic oracles about Egypt, God desired a relationship with all people, even those who were enemies of Israel.  God wants to be known by all.  That should be our heart too.  As our hearts are more like God’s heart, then geography, nationality, ethnicity matters less, and people matter more.

Photo by Dollar Gill on Unsplash

What is the cause of the rise and fall of the great powers – Ezekiel 29-32, Part 4

When I traveled with Michelle to Cambodia in 2016, we visited Angkor Wat, one of the seven wonders of the world.  It is astounding.  Ancient temples built a thousand years ago reminding us that there used to be a super power there, the Khmer Kingdom.  It was a far-reaching kingdom, a superpower in Southeast Asia.  But no more.  Now vines grow through the buildings of Angkor Wat.  They are a tourist attraction, gorgeous astounding place to visit.

Same goes for the pyramids in Egypt, which are the actual graveyard of the Pharaohs (considering that we talked about Sheol, the graveyard of the superpowers in the previous post).  Now we can look at their mummies in museums.  But it’s not just the Khmer Kingdom or the ancient Egyptians. Let’s take a quick, very general trip through world history, and we will find that the same end has come for superpower after superpower.  How many others are in the superpower graveyard?

Thousands of years ago, the Egyptians and the Assyrians conquered most of the Ancient Near East, and then the even more powerful Babylonians conquered Assyria and Egypt.  Eventually the Medes and Persians would conquer the Babylonians.  Then came the Greeks, then the Romans, and eventually the Muslims in the middle east.  There were other superpowers in Asia, Africa and the Americas. In Europe, for a time the Spanish and the French were quite powerful, then the British became perhaps the first global superpower.  Many other European countries wanted to be global superpowers too, colonizing new lands around the globe, often in brutal ways.

Then there are the contenders or pretenders to the throne.  The nations that want to be superpowers, but just don’t quite make it.

Comedian Norm MacDonald once remarked that the news tries to scare you with stories about these nations that want to be superpowers.  Countries like Iraq, Iran, and North Korea.  MacDonald asks, “Does that news ever really scare you?  Do you ever wake up in the middle of night scared, thinking ‘Ahh, that country across the ocean…I wonder if they’ll get me?’  Probably not.”  Then MacDonald says, “There is one country that worries me, though.  Not Iraq, not Iran, not North Korea.  The only country that really worries me is the country of Germany.  I don’t know if you are students of history or not, but in the early part of the previous century, Germany decided to go to war. And who did they go to war with?  The world!  That had never been tried before.  So you figure it would take about five seconds for the world to win, but no…it was actually close.  Then about thirty years pass, and Germany decides to go war again. Once again it chooses as its enemy, the world!  This time, they really almost win.  You’d think at that point the world would say, ‘Listen Germany, you don’t get to be a country any more on account that you keep attacking the world!  What do you think you are?  Mars, or something?’

While Norm MacDonald’s joke is funny, that’s not quite how it went down.  In his book called The Rise and Fall of The Great Powers, historian Paul Kennedy says that, that in both World War 1 and World War 2, there was a moment when it was obvious that Germany would lose each of those wars.  Kennedy suggests it was the same moment in each war.  Do you know what Kennedy is referring to? 

It was when the USA decided to join the Allied powers in the fight.  For all intents and purposes, when the USA entered the war, it was over.  How do we know that?  Economics.  Kennedy looks at the rise and fall of great powers from 1500 to 1980, and he traces the same pattern.  Economics win wars.  When the USA joined World War 1 and World War 2, we brought an unparalleled economic engine to the war effort.  It could be argued that German and Japanese technology and military genius were actually superior to ours.  It doesn’t matter though.  Economies win the war.  They always win.  Sure Hitler and Nazi Germany, along with their Axis partners put up a good fight, but they were no match for a massive economic engine that could fight wars on multiple fronts.  We could just keep pumping people and equipment and munitions into those battles, and little by little we could wear them down.  And we did.  It was just a matter of time. This is the story of the rise and fall of the great powers. 

Often we talk about these world wars as battles of good miraculously winning over evil. Kennedy disagrees. Does this mean that God has no say in the matter? Are economics more powerful than God? Are we to understand Ezekiel 29-32 only as prophetic oracles of Babylon’s economic ascendancy and Egypt’s economic inferiority and loss?

In the next post we’ll talk about God’s hand in the rise and fall of the great powers.

Photo by James Wheeler on Unsplash

The graveyard of world superpowers – Ezekiel 29-32, Part 3

This week on the blog we are studying Ezekiel chapters 29-32, which are all prophecies about the destruction of Egypt. In the previous posts, here and here, we learned that God said in chapter 29, that Egypt, a regional superpower was going to be attacked by Babylon, and would never again have a position of power.

Now look at chapter 30.  We’re going to move rather quickly through the next few chapters.  In chapter 30 verses 1-19, God asks Ezekiel to say a lament for the destruction of Egypt.  It’s a dark section of verses describing an arsenal of destructive methods to be unleashed on many towns and cities of Egypt. Why?  In verse 19, no surprise, then they will that he is the Lord. 

In verse 20 we’re back to year 11 (as Ezekiel’s prophecies about Egypt are dated), and God gives another prophecy of how Babylon will destroy Egypt, with God playing the role of the metaphorical mobster, breaking Pharaoh’s “arms”. Read it, and I’m guessing you’ll find it gruesome, like I did.  Why would God describe his judgment so violently?  Because then they will know that he is the Lord, the famous phrase which is mentioned twice in this short section.  Though they made bad choices repeatedly, God still wants to be known by the Egyptians.

Now to chapter 31, and the next prophecy is dated a couple months later in the 11th year.  The theme continues as the prophecy is again about the destruction of Egypt.  This prophecy might sound familiar, as it is a parable of a cedar tree, very similar to the parable in chapter 17.  This time Pharaoh, king of Egypt is compared to a great tree that God will cut down.  So far, we’ve had God the Crocodile Hunter, God the Mobster, and now God the Lumberjack. 

Finally, we move to chapter 32, dated nearly at the end of the 12th year of exile. Verses 1-16 are a lament, a crying out in anguish for the Pharaoh of Egypt, because of his downfall. In verse 17 we have another date, and it is in the 12th year, but Ezekiel doesn’t give us the month.  So maybe it was the same month as the previous prophecy.  We don’t know.  It doesn’t matter.  Verses 17-32 change the scene to the underworld, the place of the dead.  In Hebrew this place is called Sheol, and it is not the same as the New Testament concept of hell.  In this chapter it is referred to as “the earth below,” the “pit”, the “grave”, the “depths.”  There in Sheol, in this underworld, God envisions many nations and peoples who have gone there already, and now Egypt will join them.  It is a dark, ominous ending to the oracles against Egypt. 

So we’ve just had four straight chapters of prophecies of judgement against Egypt. But it is not as though Ezekiel walked out of his house, and just started rattling off all these prophecies in one big long blast against Egypt.  Remember the dates?  In these four chapters what we read are a bunch of short prophecies, uttered at a variety of moments, some many years apart.  They were collected and compiled at a later date because they were all about Egypt. Also, when Ezekiel actually gave the prophecies, we have to remember that Ezekiel is living far, far away from Egypt.  He wasn’t like Moses who lived in Egypt and walked into Pharaoh’s palace and confronted him.  Instead Ezekiel gave these prophecies to the Jews living in Babylon with him.  Think about that: prophecies…about Egypt…given to Jews…in Babylon.  Shouldn’t prophecies about Egypt be given to Egyptians living in Egypt?  Not in this case.  In this case, God wanted the Jews living in Babylon to hear these prophecies about Egypt.  Why? 

First of all, God wanted the Jews to hear these prophecies because God wants the Jews to know that he wants a relationship with the Egyptians.  You and I might think that is obvious.  But it wasn’t obvious to the Jews.  They considered themselves to be God’s chosen people.  God was their God.  In their minds God was not the God of other nations.  All the other nations had their own gods.  So the God of the Jews, whose name is Yahweh, in their thinking, did not need to be shared with other people, especially when those other people were often enemies.  In these chapters God makes it very clear that he not only wants to be known by the Jews; he also wants to be known by the other nations.  God’s heart is a heart for all people.  God’s heart is a heart for the world. 

Second, God wants the Jews to hear these prophecies, because he wants them to understand that there is a rise and fall to the nations, and that rise and fall does not hinder God’s desire to be in relationship with all people.  Go back to chapter 29, verses 13-16, which we studied in the previous post.  When I look at all of the prophetic oracles about Egypt in chapters 29-32, it seems to me that chapter 29, verses 13-16 is the most important section.  That’s the section where God says after the attack by the Babylonians, and the people of Egypt are scattered to the nations, God will return them to their homeland in Egypt.  But Egypt will not be what it used to be it.  It will be lowly. 

Imagine you are an Egyptian person living in Ezekiel’s day.  The armies of Babylon attack your land, and destroy it, forcing your people to be exiled.  In your hearts and minds, you remember the days when Egypt used to be a superpower.  It would be completely normal for an Egyptian to long for Egypt to return to those days.  It would be completely normal for them to want Egypt to return to its previous power and might.  But God says that won’t happen. 

Think about that.  Egypt was a superpower, but as the world situation developed, a new superpower was on the rise.  Babylon.  Babylon would sweep through the region, like God swinging his sword, and the all the nations would fall before them, including Egypt.  In fact, God says, in chapter 32, verses 17-32 that Egypt is going to the superpower graveyard, Sheol.  What we are seeing in these chapters is what some have called the rise and fall of great powers.  It is basically the main topic of history. 

Check back in to the next post, and we’ll try to go back through world history, laying out the story of the planet by the rise and fall of great powers. 

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The surprise identity of the original Crocodile Hunter – Ezekiel 29-32, Part 2

Who will win in a fight between an African male lion and a Nile crocodile? - Quora

September 4, 2021, was the 15th anniversary of the death of Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter. Steve Irwin was a fascinating man, but ultimately his life’s passion of interacting with dangerous wildlife led to his demise. I was surprised to learn this week that Irwin was actually not the original Crocodile Hunter. Who was the original? As we continue our study through Ezekiel 29-32, the answer might surprise you too.

Look at Ezekiel chapter 29, verses 3-6.  Ezekiel never ceases to amaze with its wild imagery, and this section is no different.

What we read in these verses could be titled, “The Parable of the River Monster”.  Or maybe “The Parable of the Destruction of the River Monster”  In this parable, God is saying that the Pharaoh of Egypt is the river monster.  More the likely, the monster he is referring to is the Nile Crocodile, which is a huge variation of croc that can grow to 16 feet long.  They still live there to this day.  All crocodiles are freaky, scary creatures.  Big powerful, and surprisingly fast.  Though God is saying that the Pharaoh is like the croc, powerful, in charge of the mighty nation of Egypt, the Pharaoh is no match for God.  God depicts himself as the Crocodile Hunter, hooking, capturing and leaving the croc to be preyed upon in the desert. 

Why does God say he is going to do this?  Does he have some random vendetta against Egypt?  No.  Look at verse 3.  God says that Pharaoh claims, “The Nile is mine; I made it for myself.” That’s a bold claim.  Did Pharaoh make the Nile?  He and the other Pharaohs before him certainly had numerous expansive building projects, which would include taming and controlling the Nile.  But God shakes his head at the arrogance of some leaders.  We saw this in chapter 28 with the King of Tyre, who grew a prideful heart.  Now God points out the selfish pride of Pharaoh.  Pharaoh doesn’t own the Nile, and he didn’t make it for himself.  God made the Nile!  Pharaoh’s arrogance is a direct affront to God.  Pharaoh is claiming things about himself that can only be claimed about God.  God is the creator, not Pharaoh.  Pharaoh has become arrogant. So what will God do? Scan down to verses 9-10.  God says that because of Pharaoh’s arrogant claims about the Nile, God is against him. 

Now let’s back-up to verses 6-7.  God says that Egypt and the Pharaoh were like a staff of reed for Israel. The staff was supposed to support them, but when Israel leaned on the staff, it shatters into splinters which pierced and hurt Israel.  This figurative speech refers to the time that Israel asked for help from Egypt when the Babylonians were going to attack Israel, but Egypt was unsuccessful.  Therefore, as we read in verse 8, God will allow a sword to destroy Egypt.  We have heard God talk about this sword in Ezekiel chapter 21.  God’s sword is the nation of Babylon.  As Babylon sweeps through the Ancient Near East, it will destroy everything in its path, like God swinging a sword of judgment against the people who have rebelled against him.  What will be the result?

Scan through verses 6-16, and three times God mentions the most important phrase in Ezekiel.  We have heard it so many times in the book, that you probably know it by heart.  “Then you will know that I am the Lord.”  It is so easy to focus on things like the sword of God’s judgment, or God the Crocodile Hunter, and get an image of a violent God.  But the better way to view the judgment of God is to remember that the people brought judgment on themselves because of their rebellious choices.  God wanted them to live a very different way, a far better way. God wanted to be known by them, to be in loving relationship with them.  That is his heart, to be in relationship with all people.  Not just his chosen people Israel; he wants to be known by all people, even the enemies of Israel.  In that sense, these chapters, and the four chapters before, are astonishing.  God wants to have the same kind of relationship with Israel’s enemies that he wants to have with Israel, a close loving relationship.  

That is likely why God envisions a restoration for Egypt.  Look specifically at verses 13-16.  God says that he will restore Egypt to the land of their ancestry, but life will not be the same as before the Babylonian attack.  Before the attack, Egypt was a powerful kingdom, but after the attack, Egypt will be a lowly kingdom.  In fact God says Egypt will be the lowliest of nations, never again to exalt itself above others.  Hold that image in your mind: Egypt, once a superpower, will be humbled.

As we continue through the end of chapter 29, at verse 17, we fast-forward about 16 years to another prophecy about Egypt.  In this prophecy God is no longer speaking in figurative language.  He is speaking plainly, describing how Babylon will destroy Egypt.  Then in verse 21, he says something very odd, “I will make a horn grow for the house of Israel.”  That is figurative language again, referring to the growing strength and prosperity of Israel.  In other words, God is saying that while Egypt falters, Israel will once again flourish.  Then God finishes this prophecy saying that he will open Ezekiel’s mouth, Ezekiel will prophecy, and the people will know that he is the Lord.

Check back to the next post as we continue studying Ezekiel 29-32 to learn about God’s heart for all people, even our enemies.

Do world events scare you? – Ezekiel 29-32, Part 1

Did you hear the news that China’s military has created full scale outlines of American Naval vessels in their deserts?  Satellite images show that one of the models of US warship is on rails so that it can be moved.  Why?  To practice bombing them?  Or maybe you heard that China has developed hyper-sonic missiles that travel five times the speed of sound. They actually launched one this past summer that circled the globe.  Did you hear that President Biden had a video meeting with the President Xi of China, at least in part to talk about what appears to be a Chinese military build-up?   There is talk of the United States boycotting the upcoming winter Olympics in China. There is also tension over China’s claim to Taiwan.  Some believe that China is working on the capability to launch a surprise nuclear attack on the USA.  Want me to keep going?  I don’t want to. I hate this kind of news.  It’s unsettling.  It sounds scary, right? 

That feeling of fear might be exactly what some people in Ezekiel’s day were feeling about a growing threat from a superpower nearby.  What people were afraid? And what superpower were they afraid of? This week on the blog we return to our study through Ezekiel, looking at chapter 29-32, and we’ll not only answer those questions, but also how it matters to us Christians living in 2021. Let’s get started by opening a Bible to Ezekiel chapter 29.

In Ezekiel 29, verse 1, we read the date, “In the tenth year, in the tenth month, on the twelfth day.”  That means the God gave Ezekiel this particular prophecy when he had been living in exile in Babylon for ten years, ten months and twelve days. 

If you’ve been following the blog series since the beginning, does that date strike you as curious?  We’ve had many dates in the book of Ezekiel so far, and they are always in this format, telling us how long it has been since Ezekiel and his fellow 10,000 Jews from Jerusalem have been exiled in Babylon.  In that sense, this date is just like the rest. Why I am saying that this date in Ezekiel 29:1 is curious? 

Let me give you a clue.  Turn in your Bible to Ezekiel 26, verse 1, and there we read the previous instance that Ezekiel dated his prophecy.  Notice what year it is?  The eleventh year.  Now do you understand why the date in Ezekiel 29 is curious? 

In chapter 26, he writes about a prophecy that happened in the 11th year. Now in chapter 29 he goes back to the 10th year.  Is he time-traveling?  As we have seen throughout our study, God gives Ezekiel some very unique prophetic methods, but time-travel is not one of them.   This date jumping, however, will continue.  Scan ahead to Ezekiel 29, verse 17, and what do you read?

“In the twenty-seventh year, the first month, the first day.” 

Now he is jumping way ahead into the future.  Except, as I just said, there is no time-travel going on.  What is happening, then?  Either Ezekiel himself, and a later person or group who published his writings, first compiled them.  They put some thought into their compilation, and they decided to forego a strictly chronological approach.  Instead, they used a thematic approach.  In this case, the four chapters, Ezekiel 29 through 32, that we are studying today, are all about the same topic, though the prophecies about that topic were from a variety of dates.  What is topic? 

Go back to Ezekiel 29, verse 2, and we read that God instructs Ezekiel to set his face against Pharaoh king of Egypt and all of Egypt.  That’s the topic:  Prophecy against Egypt and the King of Egypt, who was called the Pharaoh.   

Throughout our study of Ezekiel, God has asked Ezekiel to set his face against many things.  I have been calling this The Prophetic Stare.  I imagine that Ezekiel would walk out of his house, right there in his village in Babylon, living with the 10,000 fellow Jews who were exiled from Jerusalem, and he would stare.  That’s what he would do when he would set his face against something.  The stare, in and of itself had no power, but in staring at something, Ezekiel was shining the light of God’s truth about whatever he was staring at.  Usually, the stare accompanied a spoken prophetic word, so people would eventually find out what he was staring at and why.  In this case, God had something to say about the king and people of Egypt.  What does God say?

Join us for the next post, as we’ll talk about that.

Photo by Andrew Stutesman on Unsplash

Which is right (or better), “God Bless America” or “God Bless The Whole World”? – Ezekiel 29-32, Preview

As Americans, I suspect I am in safe territory thinking that most, if not all, of us are familiar with the song, “God Bless America.” Irving Berlin published the song in the fall of 1938 when the world situation was looking very gloomy. Less than twelve months later, Nazi Germany would invade Poland throwing Europe into chaos. A Japanese invasion of Indo-China and bombing of Pearl Harbor would follow.

What song do you write when the world is falling apart?

Sometimes considered to be the unofficial second national anthem of the USA, Berlin said that he originally wrote “God Bless America” in 1918, in the midst of another crisis, World War 1. But he never finished the song and shelved it. About 20 years later, he dusted it off, altering it to be a peace song for that new era. It was an instant hit, and Berlin created a charity donating the proceeds of the song to the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.

Americans, can you sing it by memory? The famous first verse is a prayer that says, “God bless America, land that I love./Stand beside her and guide her/Through the night with the light from above.”

Isn’t it a wonderful prayer? Or is it? You might think, “Joel, why are you questioning that? The song is asking God to guide our country. That’s a good thing.” True, but it begs a question. Shouldn’t there be a “God Bless _______” song for every country? Don’t we want God to be at work in every corner of the globe, just as much as he is at work in the USA?

From a Christian point of view, how are we to think about the message of this song? As I drive my community, Lancaster Pennsylvania, there are many yard signs and bumper stickers, including quite a few that read “God Bless America.” There are also “God Bless the Whole World” signs. (I even recently saw an “America Bless God” sign, though they are quite rare, in my observation.) What these battling yard signs and bumper stickers tell us is that there are some people who believe that they should display the message “God Bless America,” and there are people who believe they should display the message “God Bless the Whole World.” Is one more in line with Christianity than the other? Am I creating a false dichotomy?

As we continue our series in Ezekiel, this coming week on the blog we will study chapters 29-32, and we’ll attempt to address the question of God’s relationship with individual nations and the whole world, and how that matters to us. Though these chapters have a political dimension, we will seek, first and foremost, to understand the biblical and theological message that could apply to any country. So read the chapters in Ezekiel, see if you can discover any principles to apply to this discussion, and then check back in on Monday!

Photo by John Benitez on Unsplash

How to be a good neighbor, locally and globally – Current Events November 2021, Part 5

Why I Pray for Myanmar with Hope

So, who is your neighbor?  In this Current Events week on the blog, we’ve been talking about neighbors and how we are called to love them. When Faith Church rented space in our building to Burmese Christians, we made new neighbors. This week we’ve been learning about the very difficult situation our Burmese neighbors have been facing in their home country of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.

You might think that Christians on the other side of the globe are so far away that they are not our concern.  For Faith Church, they are here in our building every week.  They are our literal neighbor.  So what can the family of Faith Church do to show the love of Christ to them?  Especially when we consider the awful situation they face in their home country, where they have family and friends struggling to survive, how can we be a good neighbor?  We need to remember that both the Burmese who rent from us and the Burmese Christians who live in Myanmar are our brothers and sisters in Christ. We need to love them. What about you? Has the world moved into your neighborhood? Do you have people living near you that are struggling, or potentially come from places around the world where strife exists?

This is why it is vital that we have a global mindset, first learning about what is happening around the globe.  I encourage you to be students of God’s global Kingdom.  It will almost certainly mean going beyond the tiny clips of news that we get on TV or the paper.  There are so many easily accessible resources online.  Christianity Today does an excellent job covering the world (and I was pleasantly surprised to see, when I was inserting the link to Christianity Today that this story about Myanmar was their cover story today).  Persecution Magazine (from International Christian Concern) sends free copies each month reporting on how Christians are being persecuted.  Sign up here. Voice of the Martyrs is another. 

But then remember that the world just might have moved into your neighborhood!  For Faith Church, the world has come to us.  Through refugee resettlement efforts by organizations like Church World Service, we have people from all over the planet living in Lancaster.  That’s why our Outreach Team made “Fill The Gap” bulletin boards and placed them in our lobby.  Fill the gap? We talked about that here in the Ezekiel series. If you’re a part of the Faith Church family, spend time at those boards, and make a commitment to participate in helping. 

Most of all, as we at Faith Church heard recently from Jon Barrett, director of our local social services agency, CVCCS, Jesus’ method of charity was not to throw money at a problem.  Instead, Jesus made connections, he made relationships, he reached out and touched people.  Money can help.  No doubt.  There is a time and place for giving, and we are called by God to lovingly sacrifice out of our financial abundance to help those in need.  But that is not all we should do.  Along with sacrificial financial giving, we should strive to build relationships with those in need.  If you are a part of the Faith Church family, get to know the Burmese Christians that meet here.  What are their needs?  If you are living in a place where Church World Service works, contact Church World Service and become one of the volunteers that helps to resettle refugees.  What if your congregation was a refugee resettling church?  There are so many options for how we can build relationships, for how we can be the sacrificially loving neighbor, like the Good Samaritan. Learn about those activities and get involved!

How Christians are being persecuted in Myanmar – Current Events November 2021, Part 4

Scramble for evidence after attack in northwestern Myanmar | Military News | Al Jazeera

This week is Current Events week on the blog, and we learning about the awful civil war in Myanmar. While the war has dragged on for a seemingly endless seven decades, it has erupted violently in 2021 after a military coup in February. (If you haven’t read the previous posts in this week’s series on Myanmar, start here.) In today’s post, we look at one facet of the war: persecution against Christians. Here are a couple recent examples of what has been happening.

International Christian Concern reported on October 19, 2021, that “in the midst of intense fighting between the Burmese Army (Tatmadaw) and the local defense groups in Christian-majority Chin state, another church was vandalized by the Tatmadaw. According to Chindwin News, on October 16, the junta has destroyed a Baptist church and other residential properties in New Thlanrawn village in Falam Township, Chin State. On the same day, the military junta also burned down other 13 houses in the village. Villagers said that the Tatmadaw destroyed the Thlan Rawn Baptist Church after they failed to burn it down due to the rain. Currently, all residents in the area have fled their village running into the jungle to hide as it is no longer safe for them to stay where they are. Thousands have sought refuge in neighboring Mizoram, which is also a Christian-majority state in India.”

Two days later on October 21, International Christian Concern reported that “Military authorities in Myanmar arrested seven humanitarians working for Caritas, a confederation of Catholic relief organizations. The workers were reportedly transporting food and medicine and were apprehended in Loikaw, the capital of Myanmar’s southeastern Kayah State on October 18. Kayah State has a disproportionately high Christian population—though Christians make up only 6.2% of the population countrywide, they are over 45% of Kayah’s population. This has made them a particular target of the Tatmadaw, which aggressively persecutes religious and ethnic minority communities.”

Then on November 2, International Christian Concern reported that “A Catholic priest in Myanmar’s Shan state was forced to kneel at gunpoint and threatened by the Burmese Army (Tatmadaw) as he was traveling between towns. According to the Chindwin news, the 46-year-old priest was traveling within Nguang Shwe Region, South Shan State on October 30. He and his companion were stopped at a checkpoint around 3 pm. The junta soldiers then accused him of supporting People’s Defense Force (PDF) soldiers and threatened him by saying, “A bullet is all it takes to kill you.”  “The car was stopped, unloaded and all the passengers’ bags were inspected by the junta soldiers. After that, the priest was blindly accused of collecting funds for PDF and supporting them by buying medicines and guns,” one of the passengers told Mizzima News.  “He was then told that a bullet will be all it takes to shoot him dead if he is seen traveling one more time again,” he added.  In addition, Tatmadaw soldiers also accused the priest of planning to use a bag of fertilizer for making an explosive device, when in fact he intends to use it for his garden.  As the coup continues, tension rises between the Tatmadaw and Christian leaders, especially those of ethnic minorities. A Chin pastor was recently killed for putting out a fire for his congregant, while many other pastors have been detained and their whereabouts still unknown.  More than 160 buildings in a town in northwestern Myanmar, including at least two churches, have been destroyed by fires caused by shelling by government troops, local media and activists reported Saturday.”

Lastly, the Associated Press reported November 3 that “The destruction of parts of the town of Thantlang in Chin state appeared to be another escalation in the ongoing struggle between Myanmar’s military-installed government and forces opposed to it. The army seized power in February from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, but has failed to quell the widespread resistance.  The Chin state is a heavily Christian area in the otherwise majority-Buddhist country. Over 90 percent of the ethnic Chin people identify as Christian, many of them Baptists after the history of Baptist missionaries in the region.”

As we learned in previous posts, this kind if traumatic upheaval has led to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Burmese people to flee Myanmar, many becoming refugees.

Those of us, like myself, who live in places like the United States of America, might talk about how we Christians are being persecuted in America or other nations with freedom of religion. But we do not know persecution like what is happening Myanmar and many other places. Check back in to the final post in this series. I’ll attempt to provide suggestions for a Christian response to the situation in Myanmar.