I'm in danger once again of getting too far behind with my blog...
A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of being in church and not preaching, as we continue our series 'From Empire to Exile' looking at a whole sweep of Old Testament history covering 930BC - 586BC. Seeing how someone else tackles a passage reminds me again that the Bible is so rich - no matter how many times we read a passage God is always to bring out something new, fresh and relevant.
Ahab was a bad king - you can read all about it in 1 Kings 16:29 through to his death in 1 Kings 22:40. But one particular challenge from Ahab's life is drawn out of 1 Kings 20:42. King Ahab had defeated his enemy Ben-Hadad, with God's help, but rather than see the victory through to the right conclusion Ahab makes a treaty with Ben-Hadad and lets him go.
Whilst our immediate response might be that this is the right, loving, gracious, merciful, forgiving thing to do - God's comment is 'You have set free a man I had determined should die'.
How on earth can this be of any relevance to us in 2010?
In Colossians 3:5 we are instructed, as followers of Jesus, to put to death anything that belongs to the earthly nature. Instead we are to set our minds on Christ and to be obedient to his will. But I wonder how many of the things listed in Colossians 3 or elsewhere in the New Testament, that we are supposed to have put to death, have we actually 'made a treaty with'. We've allowed them into the chariot to ride along with us. But God reminds us that there are things in our characters that we need to put to death - to get rid of - to have no part of.
