Today's Scripture Reading (May 4, 2023): Zephaniah 1
In an advertisement for Chase Financial, Kevin Hart
buys a basketball team by putting it on his Chase Credit Card. The team in
question seems to be the Golden State Warriors, which is currently valued at
over seven billion dollars. And even if you want to go to the bargain sale
table of the NBA teams, the cheapest team, the New Orleans Pelicans, is still
worth over one and a half billion dollars. Even if you are Kevin Hart, putting
seven billion dollars on your credit card seems ridiculous, which is why the
advertising company chose this plot for their ad. It might be silly, as most
Kevin Hart ads seem to be, but we get the point.
It seems ridiculous, except as nations, this is
precisely what we seem to be doing. For example, currently, the debt of the
United States is over 30 trillion dollars. That is $30,000,000,000,000. And
that debt will be the end of us. Whenever someone tries to insist that we live
in a rich nation, I have to admit that I wonder if we live in the same country.
At best, it seems we are living like poor people living beyond their means. And
it can't continue. Either we will fix our debt problem, or someone else will
fix it for us. I understand that either way, the fix will be painful, but it
will be less painful if we fix it than if we let the world markets censor us
and fix the problem for us. The choice is ours.
Similarly, Zephaniah spells out a problem in Judah.
The worship of Baal, especially after the evil reigns of Manasseh and Amon, had
reached a tipping point. Zephaniah argues that the people of Judah must decide
to fix the problem, or God will fix it for them. Either Judah could get rid of
the idols in an act of righteousness, or God would remove them in judgment. It
was up to Judah as to what happened next.
What happened next was that Josiah became King. And
he destroyed the altars and high places devoted to the idols of the nation. But
Josiah took another step. He had the tombs of the idolatrous priests emptied and
the bones thrown away. Symbolically, it would have been as if the lives of
these priests had been erased. Josiah decided to take the path of righteousness
instead of waiting for God's judgment to do the job for him. And Josiah became
the fulfillment of the prophecy of Zephaniah.
Money and our debt have become our idols. I believe
our relationship with money is as disastrous for us as idolatry was for Judah.
We will have to wait and see if we have the courage to deal with our problem in
righteousness or whether we will wait for God to deal with our debt in
judgment.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Zephaniah 2
Personal Note: Happy Star Wars Day. May the fourth be
with you!
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