Ezekiel 8:3 – God grabs him by the hair and takes him off to Jerusalem. Yikes.
Ezekiel 8:6 – The Israelites were acting in ways to push God out of the temple. I’m sure that had you asked them, many may have thought they were actually serving God there. Yet God felt, and was, driven away. Isn’t it easy for us to do the same? We get caught up in how we should worship and what’s proper to do, or even caught up in parsing and dissecting scripture, and God Himself is driven away.
Ezekiel 8:12 – What do I worship in the dark of our own lives? In the dark, when the doors are shut and no one can see, what do I run after?
Ezekiel 8:14 – I wonder what the significance of these women weeping for Tammuz is. I searched the Bible for ‘Tammuz’ but found no other references.
Month: March 2007
Ezekiel – Chapter 7
Ezekiel 7:4 – “Then you will know that I am the Lord.” God had tried over the years through the evidence of creation, the blessings of being His people and the history of the nation and God’s interaction with Abraham, Moses, David, etc to show them that he was God. But they didn’t’ seem to get it. Now it came down to making the point through wrath and punishment.
Ezekiel 7:19 – We are a wealthy nation, but our wealth is worthless if God is coming against us. Even if he does not come, it cannot make us guilt free. It cannot cleanse our consciences. Even non-Christians understand this. They understand that money cannot make you happy, it cannot give you love and relationships, it cannot heal our hearts. Yet we still run after it as if it could. We chase things thinking that having toys will make us happy. Instead, just as in Ezekiel’s day, in becomes “the stumbling block of [our] iniquity.”
Ezekiel 7:25 – “When anguish comes, they will seek peace, but there shall be none. (ESV)” Wow.
Community
This past week was a reminder of what a community of churches are good for.
Last week some 30 college students from 3 or 4 churches in Virginia and Ohio came to spend their spring break in Columbus, sharing their faith on the campus of Ohio State. This week there are several more picking up where they left off. The first wave made some 300 contacts and have around 30 students in personal Bible studies.
We have had no campus ministry for the last few years. Many have been longing for a way to restart that ministry, looking to put resources and time into it including hiring a campus minister. I have not been one of them, rather I felt that we should instead focus on who we are – a church of mostly married folks with families. Campus could wait, we were a church of families now. I was wrong.
Having those college folks here with their zeal made me realize two things. One, I’m getting old. Wow those college folks looked young. Two, there’s been a hole in our church where the campus folks were. Without a campus ministry and the youthful zeal they bring we have been a little less diverse. I hadn’t realized what was missing until they came to town.
As I looked at those kids last Wednesday, I was taken back to my campus ministry days. Good times. I couldn’t do now what I did then, but our church needs folks who can just like it needs 40 year old bald guys with preteens. I hope that this is the spark that will ignite the campus ministry.
Also, this past weekend, we had one of the elders and his wife, Walter and Kim Evans, from the Philadelphia Church of Christ in for a parenting workshop. What a great time and great lesson. Good practical advice, I’ll try to post my notes at some point. (Better yet, listen for yourself, an MP3 file is available on our church’s sermons page.)
Walter also spoke at our church leaders meeting of the transitions the Philly church has been through over the past 5 years or so. He took questions and offered his observations on our teen ministry from an event he attended as well as on the campus student swap. His thoughts were the opposite of mine. We were not in the wrong spot to begin a campus ministry, rather we were set up perfectly. A strong campus ministry needs the stability of families behind it. He’s seen both, a church of mostly families began a strong campus ministry in Bloomington IL but in State College PA, an attempt to start a church of primarily college students failed. He was quite optimistic about our chances and called the campus swap the ‘opening shot’.
I’ve been skeptical of outside involvement in our church for some time. I was skeptical – actually, more like cynical – about these two events as well. In the end I was reminded of how powerful the community of churches and relationships of the ICOC was.
Ezekiel – Chapter 6
Ezekiel 6:1-10 – I’m sure that some in Israel and Judah were still faithful to the Lord. I wonder what it was like for them to watch the people around them leave God and to know that He would eventually bring judgement on them. I wonder how they felt facing such judgement, even though they were faithful?
Ezekiel 6:9 – The ESV refers to the people’s “whoring heart” and “their eyes that go whoring after their idols”. That’s pretty graphic language that would likely offend many religious folk today (the NIV used “adulterous” and “lusting” as do several other modern translations. Interestingly, the KJV uses “Whore” & “whoring” too). This is obviously an English translation from what I assume was a Hebrew text, but still, this is God saying this. Some group of translation scholars felt that this was the most appropriate wording. Much of this rebuke is meant to be shocking to wake the people up from their spiritual slumber, so it does seem appropriate, but I can’t help wonder. If Ezekiel had come today, and said these things to the 21st century church, would many dismiss him as not from God because he used the word “whore”?
Ezekiel – Chapter 5
Ezekiel 5:8-12 – Wow:
therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, even I, am against you. And I will execute judgments in your midst in the sight of the nations. And because of all your abominations I will do with you what I have never yet done, and the like of which I will never do again. Therefore fathers shall eat their sons in your midst, and sons shall eat their fathers. And I will execute judgments on you, and any of you who survive I will scatter to all the winds. Therefore, as I live, declares the Lord God, surely, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore I will withdraw. My eye will not spare, and I will have no pity. A third part of you shall die of pestilence and be consumed with famine in your midst; a third part shall fall by the sword all around you; and a third part I will scatter to all the winds and will unsheathe the sword after them.
This is serious stuff. God against them, cannibalism, God withdrawing, having no pity. It is tempting to read into passages like Ezekiel, as I mentioned yesterday, judgement and punishment on people today. But notice he says that he will never do this kind of thing again. Not only in the NT, but ever again. That does not exclude all Earthly judgements, but the wrath of God against an entire nation, bringing death and destruction is not going to happen again.
This rings to mind Noah and the flood. God promised no more floods and destruction of the Earth. Now, as He judges a nation, he promises no more judgements like it. I’m not sure it means anything, but there seems to be at least a parallel.
Ezekiel 5:13 – This is not the God we like to think about. We like to think of a fair God, logical, unemotional, stead fast. We are emotional creatures and created in His image, why shouldn’t God be emotional too? In this verse God says He will “vent [His] fury and satisfy [Himself]” and that he has “spoken in [His] jealousy“. Emotional. Passionate.
Ezekiel 5:15 – More – “in anger and fury, and with furious rebukes”
All in all a scary chapter that tells me that God is serious about obedience to his rules & ways. This is who God was, why then is it so hard to fathom a God who would send people to Hell? He is God and He demands obedience.
Ezekiel- Chapter4
Ezekiel 4:4-8 – I wonder if he literally laid on his side, constantly, for 430 days. That’s 14 months. Even if e di, he had to get up to eat (but not much, see next point) and go to the bathroom. Regardless, putting the extent of the punishment of Israel and Judah into these terms, and having him live it would give him an appreciation of how serious it was to God. Those days would be years for them. Not only so, I expect it would give him some sympathy for their plight.
Ezekiel 4:10-11 – 8 oz – 1/2 of a pound of bread a day (baked on human cow dung!) and 2/3 of a quart of water a day.
Ezekiel 4:16-17 – Jerusalem would not fare better:
Moreover, he said to me, “Son of man, behold, I will break the supply [7] of bread in Jerusalem. They shall eat bread by weight and with anxiety, and they shall drink water by measure and in dismay.
Ezekiel 4:16
Imagine eating “by weight and with anxiety“. And this was not, as we might like to think of God, for a grand, deep purpose. It was punishment, pure and simple. I believe that God’s heart is ultimately to teach and to care for them, that they would return to Him and that they would be better off, but here there’s no mention of that here:
I will do this that they may lack bread and water, and look at one another in dismay, and rot away because of their punishment.
Ezekiel 4:17
I think I dismiss to easily that God would punish today. I see people receive indirect punishment in the consequences of their actions – a baby born to a teenage girl, jail time for the thief, etc – but I tend to dismiss outright the idea that God would send hardships or pain simple for punishment. Certainly, it’s dangerous to pull one or two verses out of an OT book and say “See, Gos punishes us.” or even worse, “See, God punishes and He is punishing you now.”
I tend to want to see God as watching more than acting. He’s set up the world to provide punishment for us when we stray. But that’s certainly not the God of the OT, but it’s not the God of the NT either who struck down Ananias and Sapphira for their lies. We cannot point to our trouble and pin it on God as punishment necessarily (doing so is frequently a cop out), but neither can we dismiss the idea, saying God isn’t like that anymore.
Ezekiel – Chapter 3
Ezekiel 3:5 – Oh good, a friendly audience …
Ezekiel 3:7 – … or not.
Ezekiel 3:8-9 – I like how God says, “They are hard headed people, but don’t worry, I’ve made your head even harder!” God created Ezekiel, or shaped him over his life (same difference) jsut for this purpose. He was made for it and therefore equipped to handle it. If God created or called me for a purpose, he would do the same – equip me for it.
Ezekiel 3:14-15 – Equipped or not, Ezekiel isn’t taking this calling very well. Bitterness and overwhelmed. I can relate to that at times!
Ezekiel 3:16-21 – Ezekiel had a God given responsibility to fulfill. He had a choice of whether he would fulfill it or not, but he had no choice of whether to take the responsibility. He would be held accountable. That’s a bit frightening to consider. If I believe that God created me for a specific ministry (and I do), how then can I justify not filling it? Will He not hold me accountable as well? If we I ignore and brush off the fate (both Earthly and eternally) of folks around us me, how will we I escape their blood being on our my hands?
New Banner
I’m bored with the look of the site, as I’ve said before. The place is just too busy, too much info battling for your attention. Someday I’ll actually get that redesign done, but for now just a new banner image.
That’s the Beautiful Mazda Ryuga concept car from the 2007 North American International Auto Show in Detroit this past January.
Soupablog: Moleskine Sketches
Paul Soupiset is doing a series of Moleskine sketches for Lent. If you’ve never taken a look at his sketches (he’s been doing them for longer than just Lent), you should go here and take a look.
He explains the purpose behind the Lent series:
one might think that lenten art ought to be rendered in greys, perhaps using rustic vine charcoal or comprising still life tableaux. you’d hardly expect whimsy. that isn’t appropriate. nor humor. nor vivid color. nor visual puns. this is all wrong. entonces…
the moleskine (‘mol-a-skeen’-a’ — but in conversation, simply ‘mole-skin’) sketches are primarily a means for me to slow down and be still every day during the 40 days of lent. it’s an imposed discipline wherein i must sit still long enough to breathe, consider the blank page before me, and pour myself onto the page with intentionality. yes, to express myself, and then to share with God, with you, whatever. the color makes each session last a little longer — the painting must dry before i scan it, for example. …
so anyway, my intention is to continue creating at least a sketch every day of lent, to reflect on the way of Jesus, listen to God, and by means of frail and fumbling prophetic imagination, to “create… an alternative to the current system” [Bruggeman].
I’m not exactly sure what he means by all of that, but the sketches are way cool. I do understand the need to stop, slow down and meditate.
I admire folks that can sketch like this. Paul’s a Graphic Designer by day, so it’s natural that he should be able to do this. (Don’t tell Paul I have an Industrial Design degree. I certainly never had that kind of sketching ability.)
Cool stuff, go check it out.
No Difference?
From Crunchy Con Ron Dreher:
Is it just me, or did it strike anyone else that James Cameron announces the premiere of a documentary film that claims to prove that the central claim of Christianity … is utter garbage … and Christians worldwide fail to burn embassies, call for Cameron’s murder, or say much of anything.
… So I guess … there really is no difference between conservative Christian leaders and their Muslim counterparts. My bad.
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