Skip to main content

Micah, Scatter and Gather

When many people try to read the prophetic books they frequently get discouraged. They read the numerous pronouncements of judgment and wrath and don't really know how to handle it. It seemingly goes against everything they know about God.

This can be a real problem. Typically in our churches we only ever look at the New Testament. There we see what most would consider a more positive view of God. It is in the New Testament where "God is love" comes about. In the New Testament we see God sacrificing his own son to save the universe. It is in the New Testament that we see Jesus showing compassion to the weak and healing the sick.

When these "New Testament Christians" (so called because this is the only part of the Bible they read) open the Old Testament, they are often horrified at what they see. The reaction is typically to stick to the New Testament and only read those stories or passages from the Old that seem to agree with it. 

This mindset gives us an incomplete picture of who God is. It also ignores a very important truth; God doesn't change. God is the same now as he has always been and how he shall always be. The book of Micah shows us that God has always been love, even in the midst of judgment.

Background

The book of Micah was written by the prophet Micah. He lived during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. This puts the book around 740 BC. The northern kingdom of Israel had not yet fallen, but it wouldn't be long before the Assyrians marched through.

Themes

The book of Micah has two major themes. The first is God's intention to judge the kingdom of Judah for the sins the people have committed. God says, in no uncertain terms, that he will bring punishment to those who have violated the covenant and bring violence to the poor. He will shatter the nation of Judah and scatter her to the winds.

This is nothing new. God has sent prophet after prophet to his people in an effort to bring about repentance. He did this for hundreds of years, but the people had simply refused to listen. So God had no choice but to keep the promise he had made to Israel; that if they broke the covenant he would abandon them. 

Still God also remembered his promises to Abraham and David. So God tells the people through Micah that after the judgment will come a restoration. After they have been scattered to the wind, God will gather them together again like a loving shepherd. God promises that a king will be born in Bethlehem, an anointed one from God. This king will rule over a restored Israel and he will be their peace.

Theological Point

God is always faithful to his promises. When he promised Abraham that he would be the father of a great nation, he kept his word. When he promised David that his descendant would rule on high forever, he meant it. When he promised Israel that their would be dire consequences for their sins, he meant it. This is who God is.

Too often we do not treat sin with the seriousness that it deserves. We love to focus on heaven, often without realizing that there will be a judgment first. We love to look at God's promises of a restoration and a messiah, often with realizing that the sin had to be dealt with first. 

Today God has promised us that he will transform us into instruments of his will, and he meant it. What we conveniently forget is that in order to take part in this new life we must also take part in Christ's death. We must take up the Cross and follow him. The only way to the Resurrection is through Golgotha. 

Conclusion

I pray that you will read the entirety of Scripture with the same intention and openness that we usually reserve for the New Testament. God is God, no matter what era. And we are still people, in desperate need of God's help.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Thankful

Today is Thanksgiving, the day that we are supposed to celebrate all the things we are thankful for. It is a time of family reunions, football, and turkey eating. I sincerely pray that each and every one of you has a good day today. I'll admit that being thankful has not been easy for me this year. As pretty much all of you know, my mother passed away December of last year. Though she had been in the hospital for months, we were not expecting it. In fact I was sure she would be finally able to come home within a matter of weeks. Instead she peacefully passed on into the arms of Jesus, whom she loved more dearly than anyone else. As you can imagine, the entire family was heart broken. After what can easily be described as the worst Christmas ever, I returned to home to Illinois. It was here that I finally broke down. I spent the next months doing everything except being thankful. I cursed God, wept, screamed, begged to have her back, and was generally not the nicest person to be...

Proverbs, Wisdom

Wisdom is an essential part of living a godly life. The ability to make good judgments and identify potentially sinful situations are skills all Christians should have. The Bible repeatedly emphasizes that it is the duty of parents and older Christians to pass on these skills and train younger generations in wisdom. The book of Proverbs is a book all about wisdom. The various authors of the book are trying to pass on the things they have learned to a younger generation. They want all that come after them to know that true wisdom comes from God. Background Like the book of Psalms, the book of Proverbs is a collection of various sayings and proverbs from many different people. The primary author we associate the book with is King Solomon, who wrote the most out of any single author, but he is just one of several writers. It is a very interesting book in this regard. The book of Proverbs can be tricky because it isn't always consistent in how the text flows together. Some...

What is Theology?

Greetings all! For the first true post I have decided to cover what will be one of the defining aspects of this blog; theology. I know that when I was growing up theology wasn't a word that was used in the churches I attended. In fact I don't recall ever hearing the word until I was in high school, and even then it was used negatively like theology was a bad thing. Theology is inseparable from Bible study, Christian living, and being a disciple of Jesus in general. It is an indispensable part of being a Christian. The thing is we haven't always treated it that way. We have allowed our theology to fall by the wayside, believing it to be useless or not appropriate. So what is theology exactly, and why is it so important? What is Theology? The word theology simply means "the study of God." The goal of theology is to reveal who God is, and when we know God we also come to know ourselves, sin, the world, and so on. What we've done in the past (and this may ju...