Commuter Bible

Today we get a glimpse of God’s lovingkindness toward Israel as God describes Himself as a Father who adopts an unwanted baby, then as a man who redeems the life of a woman by claiming her as His bride. This woman becomes beautiful through the nurturing love of God, and as she grows in beauty, she begins to trust her beauty more than her husband. This bride is more anxious to please other men than to please her husband, and His anger is kindled against her. Later, the Lord says that a sinful man can be restored when he is repentant before God, but the one who turns away from righteousness will be condemned.

While Ezekiel’s audience often rejected his message, there’s no way they could have missed it, for Ezekiel often prophesied not just with words, but with actions. In an age before television or theatre, the illustrative actions of a regarded prophet would not only have been a spectacle, but also would have been the talk of the town. At the Lord’s command, Ezekiel acts out the exile, including the actions of a blinded King Zedekiah. Later, false prophets are condemned for making up prophecies and believing that their imaginations will be fulfilled.

While meeting with Judah’s elders, Ezekiel is carried off in a vision by the Lord. In one scene after another, the Lord shows Ezekiel the abhorrent practices of idolatry that the people are committing, especially those in the Lord’s temple. The prophet sees an otherworldly visual representation of the Lord’s sovereign decrees as judgment is declared upon Jerusalem and the temple where God once lived among His people. He is then carried off to see a conversation between the elders of Jerusalem who boast in their self-worth and who plot to take Israel’s land soon after they have been exiled.

Ezekiel performs a number of symbolic, prophetic actions while under the direction of the Lord, including several of today’s prophecies. As a pronouncement of judgment, Ezekiel draws Jerusalem on a brick and lays siege to it. Afterwards, he is commanded to lie on his left side for over a year, then his right side for over a month, a day for each year of iniquity for Israel, then Judah, respectively. Later, in the book of Isaiah, we’ll read a prophecy of hope, for predicting sight for the blind, hearing for the deaf, strength for the lame, speech for the mute, and crowns of unfading glory for the redeemed of the Lord.

Ezekiel is on his way to Babylon with a group of exiles when suddenly, the heavens are opened and he sees a vision from God. The symbolism here is pretty deep. Coming from the north, like the Chaldean armies, the Lord’s angels are fourfold with four faces and four wings, communicating the Lord’s sovereignty over the fourfold directions of the earth (north, south, east, and west) over every mighty creature, and over every man. The cherubim were the enforcers of divine judgment and were accompanied by wheels full of eyes communicating God’s omnipresent seeing and knowing all things.

We know from the gospel of John that Peter and Jesus has an intimate conversation on the shore not long after Jesus rose again from the dead. Peter had denied Jesus three times, and three times over, Jesus tells Peter, “Feed my sheep.” This same Peter encourages the churches in Asia Minor to shepherd God’s flock, knowing that the chief Shepherd will one day return in glory. If the one who shepherds us suffered in the flesh, so we, too, should also expect to suffer in the flesh, so long as we are suffering for being a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, and not because of sinful behavior.

The apostle whom Jesus named “Peter,” the rock upon whom Jesus would build his church, is now writing to encourage the churches who are scattered across northern Asia Minor. The churches were suffering under persecution from those who lived around them, and Peter reminds them of the Savior whom they are called to follow, for he suffered for our sins once and for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us God. It follows, then, that as strangers and exiles, we should be willing to be subject to those human authorities who have been placed over us by God.

The letter known as 2 John is addressed to “the elect lady and her children” which is an odd way to address someone, even in John’s day. It’s most likely a reference to the church body to whom he was writing. In it, he encourages the church to continue in love and to reject false teaching. In 3 John, the apostle commends his friend Gaius, who is likely a pastor, and writes to warn him about Diotrophes who loves attention, power, divisive speech, and who probably already had a twitter account so he could trash other people all day. In the letter from Jude, we see a saint who zealously defends the faith against false teaching and practice.

The book of Lamentations is Jeremiah’s recorded response to the devastation and ruin of Jerusalem. It is presented in a series of five poems, of which the first four are acrostics of the Hebrew alphabet, much like Psalm 119, only shorter. It is a book of suffering, shame, horror, and defeat, but centered in the middle of the work, we read of Jeremiah’s confident hope in the Lord. The first poem focuses outside the city, the second: inside the city, the third is directed toward God, the fourth toward the vanity of human glory, and the fifth poem looks to the future.

The final prophecy against a particular nation is a doozy, proclaiming total annihilation and ruin and spanning two long chapters, one of which is the fifth longest chapter in Scripture. Who could this prophecy be against? What nation’s actions would merit such a rebuke? If you guessed Babylon, you are right! Though the Lord allowed Babylon to attack His own people and send them into exile, Babylon is still responsible for their own sin and their own actions. By God’s design, his people are punished because of their ongoing sin and rebellion, but Babylon is punished more so because of their idolatry and wickedness.