The Big Picture Daniel 6:24-28)
I love the story of Daniel and the lion's den. Well most of it anyway. Daniel chooses to remain faithful to God despite the efforts of some to outlaw prayer and gets arrested and thrown into a pit full of hungry, angry lions.
But miraculously, the next morning, the king races down to the pit only to discover Daniel not only alive but completely unharmed without a scratch!
So what does the pagan king do? He praises God! He is so amazed at Daniel's account about the angel appearing and shutting the lion's mouths that He rescues him out of the pit and makes a national declaration that everyone in the kingdom, regardless of his religious or cultural affiliation, should honor and tremble with fear before Daniel's God.
The king understood that day that God alone is the true King and rules supreme over all the earth because, "He rescues and saves his people; he performs miraculous signs and wonders in the heavens and on earth. He has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions.” (Vs 27).
And then in the very same breath he decrees, "to arrest the men who had maliciously accused Daniel. He had them thrown into the lions’ den, ALONG WITH their WIVES and CHILDREN. The lions leaped on them and tore them apart before they even hit the floor of the den." (vs. 24).
Hold on a second. I get the fact that the guys who wrongly accused Daniel should be punished. Maybe not thrown to the lions necessarily, but at least have them fired or something. (Of course back then that's just how kings rolled).
But how're you gonna order their wives and innocent children to be fed to starved lions? I mean dude, what's the matter with you?
We like the Bible stories where all of the loose ends are tied up nice and neat and good conquers evil. But what do we do with stuff like this where innocent children are senselessly and savagely executed?
We recognize first that the Bible isn't 100% prescriptive. Heck, it's not even mostly to be taken as a "go and do likewise" instruction manual. Biblical narratives like these give us the raw facts and a few guiding principles that are intended to tell us something important about God without giving us an exhaustive explanation of His attributes.
We could conclude that because the king ruthlessly killed innocent women and children that God condones it and is therefore fundamentally a cold-hearted monster or at best an abusive, two-faced hypocrite who loves us sometimes but also explodes with rage without warning.
But remember, the gory details of biblical narrative are telling us a story, of which God is the main subject and fallen, sinful people are the characters. Wherever people are involved there will always be sin. Wherever sin is found we can always assume that suffering, pain, and death are not far.
We have to remember (Hebrews 1:1-3) which explains how God has fully revealed Himself in His Son and that only Christ is the exact image of God. We cannot isolate any passage an expect to understand God's character any more than we can take one day out of Jesus' life as a complete expression of His person.
But when taken as a whole, the Bible paints a beautiful picture of God's love, mercy, compassion, faithfulness, justice, creativity, discipline, holiness, and much much more. Jesus is the Word of God (John 1:1). When we put all of Scripture together it will always reflect Jesus Christ, who set His glory aside for fallen man and "humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death on the cross" (Philippians 2:6-8), all because God so loved the world.
Jesus is the BIG picture.
Facebook.com/Josh1Eight
Twitter @Josh1Eight
But miraculously, the next morning, the king races down to the pit only to discover Daniel not only alive but completely unharmed without a scratch!
So what does the pagan king do? He praises God! He is so amazed at Daniel's account about the angel appearing and shutting the lion's mouths that He rescues him out of the pit and makes a national declaration that everyone in the kingdom, regardless of his religious or cultural affiliation, should honor and tremble with fear before Daniel's God.
The king understood that day that God alone is the true King and rules supreme over all the earth because, "He rescues and saves his people; he performs miraculous signs and wonders in the heavens and on earth. He has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions.” (Vs 27).
And then in the very same breath he decrees, "to arrest the men who had maliciously accused Daniel. He had them thrown into the lions’ den, ALONG WITH their WIVES and CHILDREN. The lions leaped on them and tore them apart before they even hit the floor of the den." (vs. 24).
Hold on a second. I get the fact that the guys who wrongly accused Daniel should be punished. Maybe not thrown to the lions necessarily, but at least have them fired or something. (Of course back then that's just how kings rolled).
But how're you gonna order their wives and innocent children to be fed to starved lions? I mean dude, what's the matter with you?
We like the Bible stories where all of the loose ends are tied up nice and neat and good conquers evil. But what do we do with stuff like this where innocent children are senselessly and savagely executed?
We recognize first that the Bible isn't 100% prescriptive. Heck, it's not even mostly to be taken as a "go and do likewise" instruction manual. Biblical narratives like these give us the raw facts and a few guiding principles that are intended to tell us something important about God without giving us an exhaustive explanation of His attributes.
We could conclude that because the king ruthlessly killed innocent women and children that God condones it and is therefore fundamentally a cold-hearted monster or at best an abusive, two-faced hypocrite who loves us sometimes but also explodes with rage without warning.
But remember, the gory details of biblical narrative are telling us a story, of which God is the main subject and fallen, sinful people are the characters. Wherever people are involved there will always be sin. Wherever sin is found we can always assume that suffering, pain, and death are not far.
We have to remember (Hebrews 1:1-3) which explains how God has fully revealed Himself in His Son and that only Christ is the exact image of God. We cannot isolate any passage an expect to understand God's character any more than we can take one day out of Jesus' life as a complete expression of His person.
But when taken as a whole, the Bible paints a beautiful picture of God's love, mercy, compassion, faithfulness, justice, creativity, discipline, holiness, and much much more. Jesus is the Word of God (John 1:1). When we put all of Scripture together it will always reflect Jesus Christ, who set His glory aside for fallen man and "humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death on the cross" (Philippians 2:6-8), all because God so loved the world.
Jesus is the BIG picture.
Facebook.com/Josh1Eight
Twitter @Josh1Eight
Comments
Post a Comment