Welcome to Wondercafe2!

A community where we discuss, share, and have some fun together. Join today and become a part of it!

So who are the "tools" these days?

Rising stick in the mud ... required to keep things buried ... medium is hidden and sacred!

Only the lessor folk need to get intuit, being denied intellect by great powers ... resolution? ... get out! Escapism personified ... kind of mythical process ... entered only in trauma condition ... delirium or hypnotics ... the reverse of what got them into that mess ... belief in the trickle thing ... weep age ... aspired rheum condition ... if you have abstract space ... few believe it exists! Non essential vapors ... perhaps a wisp over the wishing well? Assume it is deep ...

May account for fear of compassion in many organizations that believe that way ... brew dish! Maybe the grail or a shared vessel ... well 'n Dhow 'd parts!

In heaven this may go round ... labelled as love sickness when little is recalled ... con sequence? There are some for and some against ... remnants of plans and schemes ... conspired ... some hatches fitted and closed ... so as to bear weight of stormy waters ...

I once got into a great debate over how salt water got into stainless steels ... there was considerable corruption ... a tale very little understood to the vernacular ...

Singularly there is need for an inside plant ... innate wisdom? hard to come by ... considered spore of the demon by those that believed they knew the wholly ... the whole of ide ... maybe something of the psychotic displaced ... you got to search out that vision ...

Abstract may be abysmal ... no end to it ...
 
Last edited:
Apparently, there were hundreds of prophets scattered through Israel's history. None of them have their own book recorded in scripture so the length of the book isn't any criterion for its inclusion.

And to be fair this is, according to the text one vision of one prophet rather than the entire corpus of the same.

Obadiah is sharing a vision and the vision uses the images of Esau and Jacob. Several times the text, Jacob I have loved and Esau I have hated appear throughout the scriptures so that forms background.

Reading the complaints against Esau/Edom it seems that when Jacob/Israel was being invaded Esau/Edom not only did not come to the rescue they seemed to be delighted by Jacob/Israel's misfortunes.

A lot of the recorded prophetic literature links the fall of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms to covenantal curses. None of their trouble would have happened had they repented. A lot of prophetic literature is also "fair warning" if either Kingdom turns away from certain behaviours God will turn away God's wrath. It is also in the prophetic writings that we hear about God blessing former enemy empires for being the tools he uses to teach some tough lessons and when those tools get to be a bit cruel towards God's captive people those blessings are revoked. So a judgment against Esau/Edom for not coming to the aid of Jacob/Israel doesn't really strike me as out of place or out of character.

How do Christians regard the text?

With the same monolithic agreement, we have on each and every single point of doctrine or interpretation.

This particular Christian, and therefore all other Christians, reads it as a window into the mind of God. God, apparently is unimpressed when we rejoice in the troubles falling upon others even when those troubles are self-inflicted. Apparently, the proper attitude to take would have been a compassionate one. Render aid even in a lost cause and mourn for those who are being disciplined. Be mindful that if God can be that rough with a chosen people how much rougher might God get on those not chosen?

How could such a message fail to confront Christian Triumphalism or even Christian Nationalism?

I mean, apart from no ears to hear.
Thank you Rev John for your post. Your explanation applies in so many ways. A tough one for me is to have compassion for anti maskers and anti vaxxers with prominent public profiles who contract and die from Covid-19. Also for many political leaders who seem intent on harming vulnerable people.
 
So who are the "tools" these days?
In order to identify the tools, God is using to chastise a chosen people one needs to first identify the chosen people.

Within the Christian broad stream, Israel is identified as God's chosen people. Some Christian supersessionism reject Jewish Israel and replace it with a new Christianized Israel which means their particular flavour of Christianity is now God's chosen people.

Isreal has real problems and some of those are the result of really bad policy and implementation. Arguing for which countries God is using as a tool against Israel requires us to know just which covenantal curse Israel is being punished for. On offhand I think that Israel has several slip-ups in their treatment of neighbours and aliens I don't know if that is enough for God to chastize them at present. The rest of the world notices and brings it up from time to time. In prophetic literature, God usually identifies which tool he will use to accomplish which purpose. Of late God hasn't sent a lot of prophets to Israel to give warning.

Christians in the West are generally free from actual problems so they need to invent them in order to get the persecution badge. No nations, states or municipalities are being used as tools against them. Most often it is entitled Christians who are making tools of themselves. Specifically, they are turning themselves into wedges, the simplest tools known to humanity.
 
Are the chosen people the side you happen to choose to be with at the time ... and time could alter this position?

This the position seems to shift ... behaving like the African ... riff 'd ... and feathers flew!

Sometimes the scribes scratching out notes at a fast pace!
 
Are the chosen people the side you happen to choose to be with at the time ... and time could alter this position?
Funny how that happens isn't it?

Funnier still is how one will claim that their reading of scripture results in them being God's chosen people and yet, the covenantal blessings and curses no longer apply and Christian nationalism demands they wipe out not just the spiritually impure within their bounds they need to expand their empire.
This the position seems to shift ... behaving like the African ... riff 'd ... and feathers flew!
Apartheid could only go so far.

While it doesn't present as a saving grace very often we fail to appreciate that sometimes the greatest monsters menacing humanity are human themselves and their sun will set.
Sometimes the scribes scratching out notes at a fast pace!
Never fast enough to keep abreast.
 
Back
Top