Old Testament for December 3, 2023

This is one of the more intimate portrayals of the relationship of God and his people in the Old Testament. Not often is God called Father, until the teaching of Jesus; and there is a sense that Israel is completely submitted to the will of the Lord, like clay in a potter’s hands.

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Isaiah 64:1-9
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

This oracle from Isaiah looks both backward and forward in time. The Prophet implores the Lord to enter onto the stage of history in a dramatic way:

Oh that you would tear the heavens,
that you would come down,
that the mountains might quake at your presence.

The Prophet is asking that the Lord do what he has done in the past, and intervene in human history.

The context for this plea, according to many scholars, is the post-exilic world of the so-called “Third Isaiah” who some believe wrote at least the chapters from 56 to 64.

While this can be disputed, no one can dispute the powerful petition that Isaiah makes for divine intervention.  The Prophet makes it clear that the God of Israel is unlike any other so-called gods, because the Lord is a God who acts decisively for his people.

God’s intervention is based on a moral compass:

You meet him who rejoices and does righteousness,
those who remember you in your ways.

However, there is also a flip side to God’s intervention — when God’s people disobeyed God’s ways, God became angry.  There is a moral demand that accompanies the divine deliverance in this passage. When the people sin and turn away from God, God also turns away from them:

There is no one who calls on your name,
who stirs himself up to take hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us,
and have consumed us by means of our iniquities.

This oracle has some of the most striking language in the Scriptures:

• Righteous acts are like filthy rags, meaning they are soaked in blood;
• The faithless, hapless people shrivel up like leaves and blow away.

And yet there is the sense that the Prophet has that Israel is still absolutely dependent on God, and that their destiny is shaped by the Lord:

But now, Yahweh, you are our Father.
We are the clay, and you our potter.
We all are the work of your hand.

This is one of the more intimate portrayals of the relationship of God and his people in the Old Testament.  Not often is God called Father, until the teaching of Jesus; and there is a sense that Israel is completely submitted to the will of the Lord, like clay in a potter’s hands.

It is on this relationship that the Prophet presumes to plead for mercy and forgiveness.  He doesn’t deny the sins that have caused God’s anger, but he begs that God might forget those sins.

APPLY:  

When we ask for God to intervene today as he once did in the past, we might want to consider what we are asking.  Isaiah reminds us that God’s righteousness and holiness are absolute, and his expectation of us is that we also be righteous and holy!

The reality is that without the holiness of God at work in our lives, even our most well-intentioned good works and morality are tainted by self-interest and mixed motives:

 all our righteousness is like a polluted garment.

This reminds us of our absolute dependence on the grace of God.  We are to be submitted to God as completely and passively as clay is submitted to the potter.  The clay doesn’t get to tell the potter what it wants to be, or how it should be shaped. Neither should we.

So, when we ask for mercy and forgiveness from God, it is very important that we begin with a sense of complete abandonment of ourselves to God.  God has everything to offer, and we have nothing.

The only works we do that will last are those that derive from God.  Ephesians points out that we are saved by grace alone; but it also insists that:

we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).

In other words, from beginning to end our salvation is all God’s work, including those “good works” that we do. The only good works that please God are those that come from God originally.

RESPOND: 

I am reminded of my own mixed motives when it comes to “doing good.”  Do I do what I do because I know that I am clay in God’s hands and that he is working through me, or because I know someone else is watching and will think more highly of me?  When I pray for God to come down and bring judgment, I need to pray first for mercy!

Our Lord, we see so much in our world that we deem worthy of your righteous judgment.  But then we realize that we also deserve your judgment! So once again we find ourselves on our knees begging for mercy.  May we be the clay in your hands, that you might shape us and our lives according to your purposes.  Amen.  

PHOTOS:
“Studio workday” by t. chen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.

Old Testament for September 4, 2022

Throwing Clay

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Jeremiah 18:1-11
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

The Old Testament prophets were inclined to use concrete and sometimes very dramatic illustrations in their preaching.  In this case, Jeremiah is instructed to watch a potter at work on his wheel.  The pot that was being made collapsed in the potter’s hand and he remade the clay into a different form.

Jeremiah gets the point.  The clay represents the house of Israel in the hands of their potter, the Lord.  Israel is the passive object being shaped and worked by God for his own purposes.

As we see in the verses following today’s Lectionary Scripture passage, Israel is hankering after self-determination.  They will hear Jeremiah’s words and declare:

“It is no use! We will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of our evil will.” (Jeremiah 18:12).

In contrast, in the Scripture the Lord’s freedom to act as he chooses is axiomatic:

Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.

The Lord points out that he can destroy a nation or a kingdom if he chooses — however, he grants nations and people the freedom to repent and turn from evil if they choose:

but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it.  And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it.

God’s freedom is absolute — although it is based on his righteousness — whereas human freedom is completely contingent on God’s permission of freedom.

Ultimately, this is a call to repentance for Judah and Jerusalem before it is too late.  The chain of cause and effect has already begun, but there is still time for them to turn.  Jeremiah completes his metaphor:

Thus says the Lord: Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.

APPLY:  

The imagery of the potter molding clay while spinning his wheel seems charming — except that Jeremiah doesn’t intend it to be a cozy sermon illustration.

The imagery of the potter and the clay is intended to convey the message of God’s absolute power in our lives.  We belong to him, and he can shape us in whatever form he wishes, and use us for whatever purpose he designs.

However, Jeremiah also makes it clear that God’s compassion for us is such that he does offer the freedom to turn to him in repentance.

This is one of the key arguments against double-predestination (the notion that God destines some to salvation and some to condemnation).  Jeremiah’s description of the clay and the potter supports the idea that all are given the opportunity to turn to God, even up until the last moment:

The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).

RESPOND: 

Those of us who have been to the beach, or even to a sandbox, may have had the experience of building a sandcastle, or some other structure of sand.  I’ve watched children diligently working on their architecture, brows furrowed and tongues slightly stuck out between their lips in their intense concentration.

I didn’t have the heart to tell them that their work would soon be dissolved — either by wind or water, or even a bully’s footprint!

This is a reminder that nothing that I build will last.  The clay pottery of my life will collapse, no matter how much effort I put into it — unless my life and work are totally in the hands of the Potter.

His work will endure.  Mine will not.  Therefore I repent of my own efforts to establish my own kingdoms and achievements, and turn them over to God.

Lord, my life is like so much clay in your hands.  Shape me and mold me into your likeness, for your purposes I pray.  Amen. 

PHOTOS:
“Throwing Clay” by Johnson Earls is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.

Old Testament for November 29, 2020

This is one of the more intimate portrayals of the relationship of God and his people in the Old Testament. Not often is God called Father, until the teaching of Jesus; and there is a sense that Israel is completely submitted to the will of the Lord, like clay in a potter’s hands.

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Isaiah 64:1-9
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

This oracle from Isaiah looks both backward and forward in time. The Prophet implores the Lord to enter onto the stage of history in a dramatic way:

Oh that you would tear the heavens,
that you would come down,
that the mountains might quake at your presence.

The Prophet is asking that the Lord do what he has done in the past, and intervene in human history.

The context for this plea, according to many scholars, is the post-exilic world of the so-called “Third Isaiah” who some believe wrote at least the chapters from 56 to 64.

While this can be disputed, no one can dispute the powerful petition that Isaiah makes for divine intervention.  The Prophet makes it clear that the God of Israel is unlike any other so-called gods, because the Lord is a God who acts decisively for his people.

God’s intervention is based on a moral compass:

You meet him who rejoices and does righteousness,
those who remember you in your ways.

However, there is also a flip side to God’s intervention — when God’s people disobeyed God’s ways, God became angry.  There is a moral demand that accompanies the divine deliverance in this passage. When the people sin and turn away from God, God also turns away from them:

There is no one who calls on your name,
who stirs himself up to take hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us,
and have consumed us by means of our iniquities.

This oracle has some of the most striking language in the Scriptures:

• Righteous acts are like filthy rags, meaning they are soaked in blood;
• The faithless, hapless people shrivel up like leaves and blow away.

And yet there is the sense that the Prophet has that Israel is still absolutely dependent on God, and that their destiny is shaped by the Lord:

But now, Yahweh, you are our Father.
We are the clay, and you our potter.
We all are the work of your hand.

This is one of the more intimate portrayals of the relationship of God and his people in the Old Testament.  Not often is God called Father, until the teaching of Jesus; and there is a sense that Israel is completely submitted to the will of the Lord, like clay in a potter’s hands.

It is on this relationship that the Prophet presumes to plead for mercy and forgiveness.  He doesn’t deny the sins that have caused God’s anger, but he begs that God might forget those sins.

APPLY:  

When we ask for God to intervene today as he once did in the past, we might want to consider what we are asking.  Isaiah reminds us that God’s righteousness and holiness are absolute, and his expectation of us is that we also be righteous and holy!

The reality is that without the holiness of God at work in our lives, even our most well-intentioned good works and morality are tainted by self-interest and mixed motives:

 all our righteousness is like a polluted garment.

This reminds us of our absolute dependence on the grace of God.  We are to be submitted to God as completely and passively as clay is submitted to the potter.  The clay doesn’t get to tell the potter what it wants to be, or how it should be shaped. Neither should we.

So, when we ask for mercy and forgiveness from God, it is very important that we begin with a sense of complete abandonment of ourselves to God.  God has everything to offer, and we have nothing.

The only works we do that will last are those that derive from God.  Ephesians points out that we are saved by grace alone; but it also insists that:

we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).

In other words, from beginning to end our salvation is all God’s work, including those “good works” that we do. The only good works that please God are those that come from God originally.

RESPOND: 

I am reminded of my own mixed motives when it comes to “doing good.”  Do I do what I do because I know that I am clay in God’s hands and that he is working through me, or because I know someone else is watching and will think more highly of me?  When I pray for God to come down and bring judgment, I need to pray first for mercy!

Our Lord, we see so much in our world that we deem worthy of your righteous judgment.  But then we realize that we also deserve your judgment! So once again we find ourselves on our knees begging for mercy.  May we be the clay in your hands, that you might shape us and our lives according to your purposes.  Amen.  

PHOTOS:
“Studio workday” by t. chen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.

Old Testament for September 8, 2019

Throwing Clay

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Jeremiah 18:1-11
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

The Old Testament prophets were inclined to use concrete and sometimes very dramatic illustrations in their preaching.  In this case, Jeremiah is instructed to watch a potter at work on his wheel.  The pot that was being made collapsed in the potter’s hand and he remade the clay into a different form.

Jeremiah gets the point.  The  clay represents the house of Israel in the hands of their potter, the Lord.  Israel is the passive object being shaped and worked by God for his own purposes.

As we see in the verses following today’s Lectionary Scripture passage, Israel is hankering after self-determination.  They will hear Jeremiah’s words and declare:

“It is no use! We will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of our evil will.” (Jeremiah 18:12).

In contrast,  in the Scripture the Lord’s freedom to act as he chooses is axiomatic:

Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.

The Lord points out that he can destroy a nation or a kingdom if he chooses — however, he grants nations and people the freedom to repent and turn from evil if they choose:

but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it.  And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it.

God’s freedom is absolute — although it is based on his righteousness — whereas human freedom is completely contingent on God’s permission of freedom.

Ultimately, this is a call to repentance for Judah and Jerusalem before it is too late.  The chain of cause and effect has already begun, but there is still time for them to turn.  Jeremiah completes his metaphor:

Thus says the Lord: Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.

APPLY:  

The imagery of the potter molding clay while spinning his wheel seems charming — except that Jeremiah doesn’t intend it to be a cozy sermon illustration.

The imagery of the potter and the clay is intended to convey the message of God’s absolute power in our lives.  We belong to him, and he can shape us in whatever form he wishes, and use us for whatever purpose he designs.

However, Jeremiah also makes it clear that God’s compassion for us is such that he does offer the freedom to turn to him in repentance.

This is one of the key arguments against double-predestination — the notion that God destines some to salvation and some to condemnation.  Jeremiah’s description of the clay and the potter supports the idea that all are given the opportunity to turn to God, even up until the last moment:

The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you,  not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).

RESPOND: 

Those of who have been to the beach, or even to a sandbox, may have had the experience of building a sandcastle, or some other structure of sand.  I’ve watched children diligently working on their architecture, brows furrowed and tongues slightly stuck out between their lips in their intense concentration.

I didn’t have the heart to tell them that their work would soon be dissolved — either by wind or water, or even a bullies’ footprint!

This is a reminder that nothing that I build will last.  The clay pottery of my life will collapse, no matter how much effort I put into it — unless my life and work are totally in the hands of the Potter.

His work will endure.  Mine will not.  Therefore I repent of my own efforts to establish my own kingdoms and achievements, and turn them over to God.

Lord, my life is like so much clay in your hands.  Shape me and mold me into your likeness, for your purposes I pray.  Amen. 

PHOTOS:
“Throwing Clay” by Johnson Earls is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.

Old Testament for December 3, 2017

This is one of the more intimate portrayals of the relationship of God and his people in the Old Testament. Not often is God called Father, until the teaching of Jesus; and there is a sense that Israel is completely submitted to the will of the Lord, like clay in a potter’s hands.

START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Isaiah 64:1-9
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

This oracle from Isaiah looks both backward and forward in time. The Prophet implores the Lord to enter onto the stage of history in a dramatic way:

Oh that you would tear the heavens,
that you would come down,
that the mountains might quake at your presence.

The Prophet is asking that the Lord do what he has done in the past, and intervene in human history.

The context for this plea, according to many scholars, is the post-exilic world of the so-called “Third Isaiah” who some believe wrote at least the chapters from 56 to 64.

While this can be disputed, no one can dispute the powerful petition that Isaiah makes for divine intervention.  The Prophet makes it clear that the God of Israel is unlike any other so-called gods, because the Lord is a God who acts decisively for his people.

God’s intervention is based on a moral compass:

You meet him who rejoices and does righteousness,
those who remember you in your ways.

However, there is also a flip side to God’s intervention — when God’s people disobeyed God’s ways, God became angry.  There is a moral demand that accompanies the divine deliverance in this passage. When the people sin and turn away from God, God also turns away from them:

There is no one who calls on your name,
who stirs himself up to take hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us,
and have consumed us by means of our iniquities.

This oracle has some of the most striking language in the scriptures:

• Righteous acts are like filthy rags, meaning they are soaked in blood;
• The faithless, hapless people shrivel up like leaves and blow away.

And yet there is the sense that the Prophet has that Israel is still absolutely dependent on God, and that their destiny is shaped by the Lord:

But now, Yahweh, you are our Father.
We are the clay, and you our potter.
We all are the work of your hand.

This is one of the more intimate portrayals of the relationship of God and his people in the Old Testament.  Not often is God called Father, until the teaching of Jesus; and there is a sense that Israel is completely submitted to the will of the Lord, like clay in a potter’s hands.

It is on this relationship that the Prophet presumes to plead for mercy and forgiveness.  He doesn’t deny the sins that have caused God’s anger, but he begs that God might forget those sins.

APPLY:  

When we ask for God to intervene today as he once did in the past, we might want to consider what we are asking.  Isaiah reminds us that God’s righteousness and holiness are absolute, and his expectation of us that we also be righteous and holy!

The reality is that without the holiness of God at work in our lives, even our most well-intentioned good works and morality are tainted by self-interest and mixed motives:

 all our righteousness is like a polluted garment.

This reminds us of our absolute dependence on the grace of God.  We are to be submitted to God as completely and passively as clay is submitted to the potter.  The clay doesn’t get to tell the potter what it wants to be, or how it should be shaped. Neither should we.

So, when we ask for mercy and forgiveness from God, it is very important that we begin with a sense of complete abandonment of ourselves to God.  God has everything to offer, and we have nothing.

The only works we do that will last are those that derive from God.  Ephesians points out that we are saved by grace alone; but it also insists that we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).  In other words, from beginning to end our salvation is all God’s work, including those “good works” that we do. The only good works that please God are those that come from God originally.

RESPOND: 

I am reminded of my own mixed motives when it comes to “doing good.”  Do I do what I do because I know that I am clay in God’s hands and that he is working through me, or because I know someone else is watching and will think more highly of me?  When I pray for God to come down and bring judgment, I need to pray first for mercy!

Our Lord, we see so much in our world that we deem worthy of your righteous judgment.  But then we realize that we also deserve your judgment! So once again we find ourselves on our knees begging for mercy.  May we be the clay in your hands, that you might shape us and our lives according to your purposes.  Amen.  

PHOTOS:
“Studio workday” by t. chen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.

Old Testament for September 4, 2016

Throwing Clay

Start with Scripture:

Jeremiah 18:1-11

CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM

OBSERVE:

The Old Testament prophets were inclined to use concrete and sometimes very dramatic illustrations in their preaching.  In this case, Jeremiah is instructed to watch a potter at work on his wheel.  The pot that was being made collapsed in the potter’s hand and he remade the clay into a different form.

Jeremiah gets the point.  The  clay represents the house of Israel in the hands of their potter, the Lord.  Israel is the passive object being shaped and worked by God for his own purposes.

As we see in the verses following today’s Lectionary Scripture passage, Israel is hankering after self-determination.  They will hear Jeremiah’s words and declare:

“It is no use! We will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of our evil will.” (Jeremiah 18:12).

In contrast,  in the Scripture the Lord’s freedom to act as he chooses is axiomatic:

Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.

The Lord points out that he can destroy a nation or a kingdom if he chooses — however, he grants nations and people the freedom to repent and turn from evil if they choose:

but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it.  And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it.

God’s freedom is absolute — although it is based on his righteousness — whereas human freedom is completely contingent on God’s permission of freedom.

Ultimately, this is a call to repentance for Judah and Jerusalem before it is too late.  The chain of cause and effect has already begun, but there is still time for them to turn.  Jeremiah completes his metaphor:

Thus says the Lord: Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.

APPLY:  

The imagery of the potter molding clay while spinning his wheel seems charming — except that Jeremiah doesn’t intend it to be a cozy sermon illustration.

The imagery of the potter and the clay is intended to convey the message of God’s absolute power in our lives.  We belong to him, and he can shape us in whatever form he wishes, and use us for whatever purpose he designs.

However, Jeremiah also makes it clear that God’s compassion for us is such that he does offer the freedom to turn to him in repentance.

This is one of the key arguments against double-predestination — the notion that God destines some to salvation and some to condemnation.  Jeremiah’s description of the clay and the potter  supports the idea that all are given the opportunity to turn to God, even up until the last moment:

The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you,  not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).

RESPOND: 

Those of who have been to the beach, or even to a sandbox, may have had the experience of building a sandcastle, or some other structure of sand.  I’ve watched children diligently working on their architecture, brows furrowed and tongues slightly stuck out between their lips in their intense concentration.

I didn’t have the heart to tell them that their work would soon be dissolved — either by wind or water, or even a bullies’ footprint!

This is a reminder that nothing that I build will last.  The clay pottery of my life will collapse, no matter how much effort I put into it — unless my life and work are totally in the hands of the Potter.

His work will endure.  Mine will not.  Therefore I repent of my own efforts to establish my own kingdoms and achievements, and turn them over to God.

Lord, my life is like so much clay in your hands.  Shape me and mold me into your likeness, for your purposes I pray.  Amen. 

PHOTOS:
“Throwing Clay” by Johnson Earls is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.