Category Archives: Arts

Arts, Christianity, Culture

Book of Joel: Are natural disasters sent by God?

OLD TESTAMENT

– A narrative on Joel 1:1-2:17

SWARMS of locusts, possibly triggered by climatic changes, have regularly devastated the Near East. They consume every green shoot and leave nothing but famine. Joel says this is God’s warning to the nation that something worse is to follow (2:2). He does not blame specific sins apart from allusions to drunkenness and materialism in 1:5 and sexual licence in 1:8.

In the Old Testament natural disasters and political oppression are seen as warnings or punishments from God on an errant Israel and Judah. But they were also part of everyday life. It is the prophetic function to interpret such historical events as conveying messages from God – which is not the same notion as the caricature of God disrupting his world by raining down vengeance.

Four things need to be held in balance. First, natural disasters are a fact of life in an imperfect world. Although phenomena such as global warming contribute to destabilising the planet, natural disasters have afflicted people for centuries. Christians point additionally to “the fall” (Genesis 3) which threw the created order out of perfect alignment (cf. Romans 8:22).

Second, Jesus explicitly ruled out the view that accidents of nature are punishments of those involved (Luke 13:1-5). Thirdly, Judah and Israel had a unique relationship with God; they formed a political, cultural, and spiritual unit called to be his “chosen people”. His dealings with them cannot be transposed directly to other nations. And finally, the Bible reminds us that God is a judge. Disasters alert us to our mortality and the certainty that we shall each appear before God for personal judgment.

In 1998, a hurricane in Honduras and earthquake in Afghanistan each killed 9,000. A cyclone in India killed 10,000. In 1999 a record wind speed of over 300 mph was registered above a tornado in the United States. Our proper reaction is not to look for “reasons” but to turn to the LORD, as there could be worse in store: an eternity excluded from his presence.

OVERVIEW

THE little Book of Joel has an importance out of all proportion to its length. It takes a literal plague of locusts in Judah as a basis for prophecies about “the day of the LORD”.

Some may see the swarm as an allegory for, or a literal forewarning of, the invasion of Judah by Babylon or other aggressors. However, the simplest interpretation is that Joel takes the literal disaster as a general warning of worse to come.

The second half offers a promise or renewal and restoration after repentance and was quoted by Peter on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) with promises of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

A key quote comes from Joel 2:13: “Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate.”

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Arts, Christianity, Culture

One shall tell another

NEW TESTAMENT

– A narrative on John: 1:35-51

THE “success” of evangelistic campaigns in which people are invited to a meeting to hear an address explaining how to become a Christian, depends largely on “Operation Andrew” – the personal prayer and witness of Christians before the meeting. Lasting effects generally come from this “personal evangelism on a large scale” more than from the much parodied “mass evangelism”.

Jesus’ first disciples doubled in number because Andrew and Philip told others that Jesus was worth listening to. Once in his presence, Peter and Nathanael were dealt with according to their individual personalities.

Peter received a new identity and opportunity of service, important for one who was a blunderer. (It is stressed at the end of the Gospel, too.) Nathanael was sceptical, secure in a comfortable life. (“Under the fig tree” was a common Jewish expression for well-being.) He needed to know that Jesus was a caring and secure guide. The insight confirmed that he was.

The witnesses were different from the people they brought, too. Quiet and sensitive Andrew brought the brash Peter to Jesus. Philip seems even more cautious; when some Greeks wanted to see Jesus, he asked Andrew to go with him to tell Jesus (12:20-22)! A person does not need to be “upfront” to be a useful servant of God.

Nathanael is probably to be identified with the Bartholomew of the other Gospels. Bartholomew is a patronymic (“son of . . . “) so he would have had another name. In the Synoptic Gospels, Bartholomew is always closely associated with Philip. Nothing is known of either of them after the death of Jesus.

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Arts, Christianity, Culture

Isaiah: Society drifting without a leader

OLD TESTAMENT

ISAIAH: AN OVERVIEW

PEOPLE who wait on the LORD shall “soar on wings like eagles”, Isaiah declares (40:31). His book does just that. In the second half especially, the poetry and thought rises above the petty concerns and trivial harassments of human life and transports us gracefully into the presence of God.

Isaiah looks down from a great height on Judah, Israel, and the surrounding nations, and sees them all from God’s vantage point. Then he looks upwards in paeans of praise and adoration that surpass even the best of the psalms.

Yet the book has been the subject of some of the bitterest wrangles among scholars. Although regarded by the Jewish community and the New Testament writers as a unity, Isaiah’s authorship of chapters 40-66 has been doubted consistently over the past 150 years.

Although such questions are important for our understanding of Scripture as a whole, they have only a mild influence on our interpretation. “Second Isaiah” clearly relates to a specific historical situation (which, despite the often-timeless character of its poetry, should inform the way we use its message), whether it was written in advance by Isaiah or closer to the time by someone else, prolonging the whole wide range of Isaiah’s emphases.

Among Isaiah’s great themes are the promises of God’s refreshment and restoration after a time of trial, discipline, and correction. Isaiah never minces his words, but he is a prophet of hope even when he roundly condemns social injustice and religious apostasy.

He is at his greatest when he contrasts the power and resourcefulness of Israel’s holy God with the poverty and impotence of idols which people create from what they can touch and see to give meaning and purpose to their lives. Our idols are different from those of his day, but they are aggressively marketed by image-makers in advertising and public relations agencies.

Music lovers will hear in the call to prepare the way (ch 40) and the catalogue of the servant’s suffering in chapter 53 words immortalised in Handel’s Messiah: readers familiar with the New Testament will recognise them as being fulfilled by John the Baptist and then Jesus’ crucifixion.

If you come to the Old Testament with doubt and suspicion as to its relevance for today, and you want to retain your doubts and suspicions, it is may be best that you avoid Isaiah.

The Book of Isaiah contains majestic poems of God’s greatness and supremacy, as we witness in Isaiah 40:25,26

“‘To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?’ says the Holy One. Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.”

SOCIETY DRIFTING WITHOUT A LEADER

– A narrative on Isaiah 3

THE philosophy of leadership changed in the latter half of the twentieth century from “command and control” to “team building”. People who can inspire others are more likely to gain respect than those who shout orders, give few reasons, and expect to be obeyed.

We need leaders at every level of society to hold the structure together. But sometimes people aspire to leadership simply to feed their own emotional or power-hungry needs. And the wrong people may be given leadership roles because other people can’t be bothered to do the job.

The picture in this chapter is of a leadership society, drifting like a rudderless ship. Instead of having mature, wise leaders with a steady hand on the tiller, Jerusalem is being piloted by inexperienced “boys” prone to naïve mistakes and laddish excesses.

It is a form of judgment on a degenerate society to have the leaders it deserves. As society drifts from God, it loses its bearings. When people start to pull in different directions fellowship and outreach break up on the reefs of schism. Lack of leadership in such situations compound the misery of what is going on.

So, we hear calls for “strong leadership” to tug society or the Church back to its moorings. But that sounds like a return to the command and control of a military dictatorship. Modern leadership theory is much more in line with Jesus’ teaching. He said that leaders were to act as servants and lead by example (Matthew 20:24-28). When we feel ourselves to be drifting towards the rocks, don’t pray for a tugboat; pray for a helmsman.

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