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Tuesday, March 09, 2004 Lessons in MicahInterestingly, we’ve just looked at Micah in our BSF study. Janice, interested in your experience!There were a few lessons, some intended and some not, I suspect. We learnt that Micah was a poor prophet of lowly birth, not the type to hang around in the kings’ courts like Isaiah (his contemporary). He had a message of God’s judgement about to be exacted on these unruly “people of God” and there is no clear call for repentance (unusual). And he wasn’t going to get rich from his trade of prophesying, because the people preferred the “prosperity prophets” who, apart from God calling them false, promised the people good times (Mi2:11): “If a liar and deceiver comes and says, 'I will prophesy for you plenty of wine and beer,' he would be just the prophet for this people!” Lesson: sometimes we may be called to deliver a message, in the face of God’s clear and awful judgement, which will not be well-received or make us popular. And here’s where I think an unintended lesson came in. There was an application along lines of “are you a friend to your office colleague, if at end of life he discovers God’s judgement on him and realises you were a Christian with the message of hope which he never got?” Sort of, us taking the rap for not being good witnesses – instead of (as Romans ch’s 1 & 2 make clear) recognising that the person to blame is the individual themselves; God’s voice speaks loudly through creation and all around us, and yes as Christians who are called to show something of God’s character in this world, we have a role. One we should take seriously. But I don’t accept that we should layer ourselves in guilt over those who won’t listen to God’s voice, and don’t recognise their need. I think we all know the difficulty and futility of trying to talk to those who just aren’t interested. I am learning that in this business of salvation, nothing works like God’s call on an individual. Another lesson concerned the advice that Micah gives (Mi6:8) “And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” It was pointed out that this was advice for those under the law, whereas today (recognising that we are not under law but under grace) the standard is considerable higher. Today, where every believer is gifted with the indwelling Holy Spirit (which wasn’t the case prior to Joel’s prophesy being fulfilled at Pentecost), the standard for living is given in the new commandment of Jesus “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” Just like Jesus in Matthew 5, with all those “you have heard that it is said…” (under the law) “…but I say unto you”, raising the bar to a seemingly impossible standard for Jews who couldn’t even keep the old law. How do we meet this standard? We are graciously alive in the Holy Spirit, indwelling us and empowering us, so that (I truly believe) we don’t need to consciously witness to our colleagues (unless called to do so), we don’t need to roll up our sleeves and try very hard to “act justly, love mercy, walk humbly” etc. These are things which are part of the character of God, and part of our lives as we are alive in the Spirit, presenting our bodies a living sacrifice each day. And that, I believe, is the best witness we can be of Christ to those who, without him, are facing imminent and awful judgement. Just what I got from Micah. # posted by geoff @ 3:17 pm 0 comments
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