In Numbers 11 when the elders are brought before him to
anoint them, that the Lord might take some of the spirit given to Moses and
give it to them. As he does, two men in
the camp, Eldad and Medad, begin to prophesy.
Joshua wanted Moses to stop them but Moses responded, “Are
you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord's people
were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!” Joel sees the day when the Lord will do
exactly that and Peter knew as soon as he saw the events of Pentecost that this
wish and this prophecy had been fulfilled.
Joel sees that when the restoration and exaltation of Jerusalem (Mt
Zion) was complete that the people would all be prophets, given the spirit of
God. At the same time, he sees the judgment
of the nations in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, a place only mentioned here in the
Bible, and there is uncertainty as to its actual location.
The manager knows the jig is up, he has
been caught out and he is being asked to turn the books in to his employer, and
he will need to see to his future. By writing
down the debts he ingratiates himself into the hearts of his master's
debtors. He is presuming also on his master's
own graces in doing this. He has not yet
been discharged from his duties so he continues to act as agent for the
master. He has bound the man to accept
the deals he has just made. He is
commended for shrewdness in the eyes of the world, his future is secure and the
master also now appears even more generous.
It is a difficult parable, he is commended for worldly wisdom not
eternal wisdom. Shrewdness is not a
godly characteristic.
We are meant to not only hear the word but
to do it. We are to be like Jesus, a
living word, God's Word written to the world.
No Jew would have understood that he/she was simply to learn the Law, they
were to live it out. The purpose of
talking it out was to learn how to live it out, to practically apply the Law to
life. We have made discipleship into
something like a Bible study rather than learning to live like Jesus, speak
like Him, think like Him and love like Him.
We have made it into religious study rather than training for godly
living. We have been given God's spirit
for life, the Law is written on our hearts, so that we might be the people who
bear God's image in spirit and truth, not simply so that we might know what
that would look like. Let us have done
with shrewdness and live simple lives where yes is yes and no is no.
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