Today's Scripture Reading (March 13, 2023): Micah 1
As I was embarking on my
career, I was told that most Christian church pastors find their origins in
rural, small churches. The kids responding to God's call were more often from country
origins, and sometimes they went to rural communities, but often at some point during
their careers, they get called into city ministry. But part of the problem is
that the church in a rural community and an urban church looks quite different.
As a result, it sometimes seems that most urban churches are just country
churches trying to survive in an urban context.
However, there might even be
an advantage to that. From my experience, and I am a bit of a hybrid, having
put in a significant portion of my life both in city and country settings,
small-town living can make things a little more black and white than sometimes
is true in urban ministries. And that can be a good thing. Maybe it all depends
on your perspective.
We know very little about
Micah except that he had a very strong sense that he was a prophet called by
God and was from the town of Moresheth-Gath. Moreshath-Gath existed in
southwest Judah, close to the border between Judah and the Philistine cities.
Therefore, Micah was a small-town prophet who was called to speak to the
situations in the urban areas of Jerusalem and Samaria. The heart of Micah's
ministry seems to have taken place during the reign of Ahaz. While both Jotham
and his grandson Hezekiah were good Kings who reigned in Jerusalem, Ahaz was a predominantly
evil king who followed the example set forth by a chain of evil Kings who
reigned in Samaria.
King Hezekiah was an
important reformer in Judah, so maybe he heard the message of Micah and the
other prophets of the time and decided that his father was wrong. Hezekiah purified
the Temple, removed the idols, reformed the priesthood, destroyed the high
places, and even demolished the "bronze serpent" purported to be the
same one Moses had created at the command of God in Numbers 21 during an attack
of venomous snakes.
The Lord said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a
pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live." So Moses made a bronze snake and
put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the
bronze snake, they lived (Numbers 21:8-9).
Hezekiah believed that he
needed to be the change that Judah needed. The Bronze snake had become an idol
in Judah, but Hezekiah had ended its reign, whether or not the snake was the
one Moses had made. And Micah, the small-town prophet from Moreshath-Gath,
would have cheered at every step.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading:
Micah 2
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