The first words of the reading always need to be
remembered. "I am the Lord your God
from the land of Egypt; you know no God but me, and besides me there is no
savior." The rest of the passage is
far from comforting. They are, in fact,
the worst threat imaginable, this God is going to tear them open and devour
them like a lion would do to its prey.
Fortunately, the verbs are all present tense, He has not rejected
them in His fierce anger, has not
annulled the covenant for unfaithfulness.
He is still their God and He is also their savior. The problems are that they have known other
gods and they have sought for saviors elsewhere. In order to return the nation to Himself
there is only one option remaining, to come against them and prove the
impotence of their gods and would-be saviors.
Nothing can protect them from His anger but it is not for the
annihilation of the people it is for their ultimate salvation as a nation. Without God's mercy there would be no Israel,
there would also be no church.
What odd belief did Herod have concerning resurrection? Why would a Jew believe that one man had been
resurrected from the dead and now his spirit inhabited the body of another
man? It is a very strange idea and has
no basis in Judaism. Herod knew that
under the law his marriage to Herodias, his brother's wife, was illicit and
forbidden, just as John had said. Indirectly,
John had been murdered by Herod for this very reason. Herodias contrived to bind her husband by his
own rash promise and have John killed. Herod's
sin caused him to fear John's truthfulness and caused him to believe the
unbelievable. He was rejecting God's
truth in his own life and because he did, he was willing to believe something
that made no sense in his religious framework.
Sin causes us to change our beliefs to accommodate sin. It causes us to forget He is the Lord our
God, our only God, our savior. Our theology
is messed up by sin, we force ourselves to account for sin in some way when all
we need is to repent.
We have received the spirit of God that we might understand
the mind and heart of God and yet so much of our theology today is based in
worldly wisdom and understanding. I see
it in the movement that believes that sickness and suffering of any kind come
from sin and we blame the sufferer for their misery when we are blinded to the
reality that we are also sinful and yet we do not suffer as they do. I see it in the frightening word-faith
movement that we speak things into existence or bind God with our words. I see it in the prosperity Gospel that
promises if you say yes to God you will receive material blessings. When we are motivated by material things,
whether those be wealth , health or anything else the writer of Ecclesiastes
says are under the sun, we have reasoned from below and not from the Holy
Spirit. We are then worshipping other
gods and seeking other saviors. Where is
your highest good?
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