Today’s Scripture Reading (February
4, 2014): Zephaniah 3
In a recent blog posting (January 19, 2014), author Seth Godin comments about the nature of artistic world – and according to Godin, at the heart of any great artist is great humility. He writes “It's arrogant to assume that you've made something so extraordinary that everyone everywhere should embrace it. Our best work can't possibly appeal to the average masses, only our average work can.” Godin seems to believe that if we want to appeal to everyone, then the product that we produce as artists will be far from great – probably because a work that appeals to everyone is bound to have sacrificed artistic truth in order to gain acceptance. Work that appeals to the masses is compromised. Godin sums up his short article by saying that “finding the humility to happily walk away from those that don't get it unlocks our ability to do great work.”
Zephaniah’s prophecy, along with all of the other prophets of this time period, is wrapped up with the idea of the “end times.” No, not the end of the world, but rather the end of Judah and Israel. By the time of Zephaniah’s ministry, Israel was already gone and Judah’s fate had been set in stone. Judah was going to end with a crash. And one of the significant things about the end is that the Babylonian Captivity was about to remove the best and the brightest that Judah had to offer. All the heirs of the throne of Judah, and most of her scholars – the rich and the smart and the cultured and the high-born were all about to be removed from the nation. All that would be left in Judah was what the Bible calls “the remnant” – a small portion of the whole. And if the most desirable and educated of Judah – the ones with the highest potential –are all going to leave, then the ones who are left will be the odd and the weak; those that may have been considered the least desirable of the nation. And on the surface, the reason for the move from the standpoint of Babylonians makes some sense. By removing the best of the nation, the Babylonians were lessening any chance that Judah would rebel against the occupation of their traditional homeland – an action that Judah had taken in the past.
But what if that’s not it. According to the Bible, the Babylonian Exile was not engineered by Babylon – but rather by God. Nebuchadnezzar was God’s tool – and later in his life he became God’s servant. So what if the exile was not about protecting Babylon, but rather about God hitting the reset button on Judah? What if the story is really that God was about to do something new in Judah and Israel – and he knew that the most, and especially the best, were just not going to understand. And so God’s plan was to humble the proud in Babylon, while leaving the meek and the humble in Palestine to begin the work of resetting the nation. The remnant became place holders for the nations of Israel and Judah. God had not given up – he was just changing the game plan.
And, maybe, what we need to do in our modern society is to imitate the remnant. Part of the contemporary problem in the Christian Church is our pride. In Western culture, we often seem to be believe that we are the best and the brightest – and often do not seem to be humble enough to recognize a genuine move of God. What seems to be missing from the Western Church is a great humility. God seems to want to do a great work, but we aren’t getting it. And so God moves the church on with a new remnant made up of the humble and those that trust in him. But these are not the people that we would have chosen – actually, they are often made up of the very people that we have sent away - because we just don’t understand.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 2
Chronicles 35
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