Today’s Scripture Reading (January 23, 2020): 2 Kings 16
What does your
God look like? And exactly how do you know? It might be one of the most
frustrating parts of religious life. As Christians, we want people to believe
that we are people of the Book, the Bible. We wish to think everything that we
do is based on the writings that we believe came from God. But that is just not
true. Not really. What we believe is more often based more on the voices of tradition
and our community than on a robust biblical exegesis. And when someone steps
into our midst and offers another biblical view, we brand them as heretics and banish
them from our midst. It is a process that played itself out repeatedly during The
Reformation. Reformers stepped up with a message that was based on what the
Bible said, and they were cast out; many were executed because their interpretation
didn’t match with the voice of tradition or religious hierarchy. I wish that
this was just a historical fact, but it is a process that continues to play out
today. I know that people have stopped reading this blog because I read in the Bible
a form of pacifism that says that we should turn the other cheek and love our
enemies rather than take up arms against them. I believe in the authority of the government,
even a government has gone wrong, and believe that this grand democratic
experiment needs to be protected.
King Ahaz has become
fed up with a faith system that will not allow him to get what he wants. And so
he decides to build his own religion. He reshapes the Temple, placing a new
altar at the front entrance of the edifice. He repurposes the furnishings that
had once been dedicated to serving the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And he
makes himself, essentially, the High Priest of this new religion. He is the one
who will enquire of the god he is creating. He will be the face of this new
belief system that he has decided to bring into Judah.
His grandfather,
Uzziah, had made the mistake of trying to become a priest in the house of the
God of Israel. It was a prohibited action. Under the Law of Moses, there was a
division between what the political leader did and the duties of the religious
leader. In Uzziah’s day, the priests did whatever they could to stop the
madness of the king. That they failed was not on them.; they tried to stop
Uzziah from burning incense in the Temple (2 Chronicles 26:17-18). But
apparently, Uriah didn’t even try to stop Ahaz. If this is the same Uriah mentioned
in Isaiah 8, then he was a good man and a “reliable witness” (Isaiah 8:2). But
he had been compromised by a corrupt king.
David Guzik adds
this note of conclusion to the actions of Ahaz and Uriah. “Corrupt political leaders have
almost always been able to find corrupt religious leaders to help them.” But if
our picture of God comes from our study of the Bible, maybe we can stop that
from happening. Perhaps the question that we need to be asking is not “does this
teaching match with the tradition that I have always believed or the voices
that have gathered around me,” but rather “does it comes from the book.” And
even if it is a new light, as a Christian, I have the responsibility to examine
the light, struggle with it, and discern, with the help of God, with Christ in
me, whether or not it might be true.
And maybe then
we can escape the disaster of Ahaz and Uriah.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Isaiah
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