Great conclusion! And it reminds me I should study the minor prophets more. One of my dad’s favorite quotes was Micah 6:8: “He has shown thee, O Man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of thee; but to do justly; and to love mercy; and to humbly with your God.”.
1 Like
Habakkuk. Love him. His complaint is my own:
“How long, Lord, must I call for help,
but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, “Violence!”
but you do not save?
Why do you make me look at injustice?
Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?
Destruction and violence are before me;
there is strife, and conflict abounds.
Therefore the law is paralyzed,
and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous,
so that justice is perverted.”
God’s reply: Babylon will serve out his justice on the wicked. But this only prompts another question about theodicy from the prophet:
“You, Lord, have appointed them to execute judgment;
you, my Rock, have ordained them to punish.
Your eyes are too pure to look on evil;
you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.
Why then do you tolerate the treacherous?
Why are you silent while the wicked
swallow up those more righteous than themselves?”
God’s reply: Babylon’s time will come.
"Woe to him who piles up stolen goods
and makes himself wealthy by extortion!
How long must this go on?
Will not your creditors suddenly arise?
Will they not wake up and make you tremble?
Then you will become their prey.
Because you have plundered many nations,
the peoples who are left will plunder you.
For you have shed human blood…
“Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed
and establishes a town by injustice!
Has not the Lord Almighty determined
that the people’s labor is only fuel for the fire,
that the nations exhaust themselves for nothing?
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea."
Stunned by the magnitude of his vision, the prophet ends with the greatest declaration of faith in the Bible:
"I heard and my heart pounded,
my lips quivered at the sound;
decay crept into my bones,
and my legs trembled.
Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity
to come on the nation invading us.
Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.
The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to tread on the heights."
One minor prophet study down. How many more to go? 
3 Likes
Gee, sometimes google isn’t as good as just using a dictionary. My question’s been answered … unless anyone would care to qualify any part of this definition.
evangelical
evan·gel·i·cal | \ˌē-ˌvan-ˈje-li-kəl, ˌe-vən-\
variants: or less commonly evangelic \ˌē-ˌvan-ˈje-lik, ˌe-vən-\
Definition of evangelical
(Entry 1 of 2)
1 : of, relating to, or being in agreement with the Christian gospel especially as it is presented in the four Gospels
2 : PROTESTANT
3 : emphasizing salvation by faith in the atoning death of Jesus Christ through personal conversion, the authority of Scripture, and the importance of preaching as contrasted with ritual
4acapitalized : of or relating to the Evangelical Church in Germany
boften capitalized : of, adhering to, or marked by fundamentalism : FUNDAMENTALIST
coften capitalized : LOW CHURCH
5 : marked by militant or crusading zeal : EVANGELISTICthe evangelical ardor of the movement’s leaders— Amos Vogel
1 Like
In case Jay hasn’t provided enough of a teaser for all of us, throw this one on the list yet too … the latter part of Ezekiel 16 … after the prophet is finishing up throwing around the worst racist insults he can think of to get the adequate comparison across (“your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite” caliber of stuff!) he goes on to tell Israel that even their sister Sodom isn’t as bad as they are. And what were the sins of Sodom? Ezekiel spells it out … wait for it … “This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; …”
Sexual sins didn’t even make the specifics of Ezekiel’s list (except perhaps to get them lumped in with the latter ‘catch-all’ category there.) Sexual sin is spelled out in other places to be sure. But I believe I’ve heard preachers note that the Bible as a whole (both testaments) have a lot more to say about money than they do about sex. My theory is we like the sexual judgments a lot more because chances are, we can find something among those that we fancy ourselves to have followed (at least as far as the letter goes), and therefore we can get more excited about helping others see their shortcomings on those scores. Mammon, on the other hand, leaves almost none of us [in affluent communities] unchallenged. So we hasten past the majority of material in our Bibles, searching hopefully instead for the sins of others that we can get excited about.
2 Likes
As in thank God I am born heterosexual! A fine accomplishment - as I think you mean to mock a little. 
Yeah … you read me well enough. As long as we remember that mockery is a fickle and unfaithful companion. [Though, let me hasten to add that I do not / am not here endorsing anybody’s notions about what does or does not constitute such sins. That would be for another venue … another time … and probably without me. We’re skating the edge close enough here as it is (or even over it) just talking about money and social justice, even.]
Deal! We’ll only engage it very occasionally and in moderation.
2 Likes
Oh, man…and I thought I knew all the insults I have to tell my kids not to copy from school.
2 Likes
You would love a course my church is offering in February. The course explores the biblical perspective of justice and judgement in the light of the prophetic tradition. The teacher is professor Jeremy Waldron, a professor of legal and political philosophy at NYU School of Law. He gave us a preview of the course on Sunday. The Hebrew word for justice is mishpat, which can also mean legality and righteousness. And the Greek word for justice, dicaiosyne, can also mean righteousness. So justice has a broader meaning than we usually think of it.
4 Likes