Tag Archive - University church of Christ

Laws of the Medes and Persians

June 29, 2011 in Religion with 0 Comments

Heard an interesting question last Sunday from the teacher who was teaching from Daniel.

 

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He noted that in Daniel, the laws of the Medes and Persians are held up as something set in stone. That is, if these guys passed a law, everyone obeyed it. Then he noted that after God rescued Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah (I don’t know why everybody refers to their Babylonian names) from the furnace, Nebuchadnezzar (the Babylonian) starts praising God and gets religion and all. Then he makes one of these laws or proclamations about getting violent with anyone who doesn’t respect their God.

Later on: regime change.

Then a new guy comes to power and just rearranges all kinds of national boundaries. In chapter 6, the new guy – Darius – makes another of those earth shaking decrees that basically went like this: when you hear the loud noise, fall down and wallow in the mud…

Which is kind of like the kids game/rhyme –  “Ring-a-ring-a-roses.”

They made a lot of strange rules then. Imagine if they had computers to generate more… (Imagine if we used them to make less).

But the point is that everyone followed the laws of the new guys on the block (i.e., Medes and Persians).

So Daniel survived the regime change and makes it out of the lion’s den alive and unharmed and Darius (the guy who threw him in their in the first place) comes out and gets religion – like his father before him.

Darius makes a new decree (like they needed another one) that everyone in his kingdom is supposed to fear Daniel’s God.

Why? Because he is the real thing.

So from that point forth in Ancient and Near Eastern history all people feared the God of Daniel.

Ok, so maybe not the whole region; But at least in all of Persia, right?

Not really.

I guess the laws of the Medes and Persians weren’t that powerful after all.

Or maybe it’s hard to dictate religion to a nation when you are a polytheistic brutal ruler who is only interested in his own power.

Seems to make a difference just who the ruler is. But it is also hard to take people where they don’t want to go.

Just thinking…

 

 

The far country

June 26, 2011 in Religion with 0 Comments

It was good to be back at the University church in Conway recently. I have missed this church for over four years. Because they are in the process of looking for a new preacher, they are having guest speakers. Jim Woodruff from Harding University was speaking the Sunday we were there.

Interstate 65 - Mobile River Delta - c.1981

I had never heard him preach before, but I’m glad I was there.

The text was the Prodigal Son. When the guy read the bible text, I silently groaned. (Not because of the guy reading – he is a wonderful guy and superb guitarist).

“No,” I was thinking, “How many hundreds of sermons have I heard from this text?”

How many have you heard?

Probably many.

This time though, Jim opened up the text in ways I had not heard before. One thing I liked was his description of the far country. He said that it could mean, not only a geographical reference but also a depraved heart or a broken relationship.

I understood the text so much better because it reminded me that I’d been there too. Not that I needed reminding.

I remembered a younger guy driving off to attend college at Jacksonville State University in 1981 in a sweet 1973 Dodge Duster (with artificial snake skin roof). Because I didn’t want to leave early, I left at midnight – it is a six-hour drive. Apparently sleep was not a big need of mine back then.

Because the I-65 Bridge wasn’t completed, I had to go by Scott and International Paper Companies in Plateau, drive through Baldwin County, and follow Highway 225 north to I-65.

I arrived around seven that morning, completely exhausted.

I made a few friends and promptly went to sleep  - on a couch I think.

I missed all the advising sessions that helped you pick the right classes to take for the fall. So I advised myself.

Because of this daring move, I ended signing up for French 101, engineering 101, and a few other classes I had no business taking.

It went downhill from there.

After a year and a half in northeast Alabama, I realized that I had taken a wrong turn in life. Not because I took French and Engineering but because of some bad choices I’d made. I made a deal with God: let me transfer to Alabama Christian College in Montgomery and I’d major in Bible. I reasoned that by becoming a Bible major, that would somehow entice God to overlook the past year and a half of my life.

This was not an especially wise motivation for wanting to become a preacher.

Jim asked in his sermon, “What is it that turns on the light in the brain? What wakes someone up to his or her real situation?”

For the prodigal son, it was the sight of seeing the pig food in front of him and remembering that his father’s servants ate better than this. He was just starving to death!

Here’s the point: God accepts motivation less than noble to bring us back to him. It didn’t matter that the motivation to bring the son back was his empty stomach.

Your motivation for returning to God doesn’t matter. What matters is that he loves you and wants you back home. What matters is that you come home.