Plymothian

What kind of safety do we dwell in?  People who have trusted God have been killed in their sleep.  What kind of security do we have?  People who have trusted God have lost everything?  There is more to life than food, clothing, and safety.  Those treasures are in the lap of God.  I wish that I could see them more clearly.  I know that when I see God and comprehend Him my heart is filled with a greater joy.

Read Psalm 4

1. What does the psalmist want from God (v. 1)?
2. Into what do men change David’s glory?
3. What must we remember in our anger?
4. In times of distress how does David find joy?
5. How do you find joy in times of distress?

Going Deeper

Compose a personal Psalm by writing:

1. What you desire of God
2. Recount God’s past works in your life
3. Restate your faith in God

Example:

The ebb and flow of emotion perplexes me
Unsteady circumstances wound me
I stand to lose if another finds redemption
The desires of my heart will evaporate if another performs well
I can not will my sister’s failure
I can not sneer at her success

You have shown me more of you
Through paths of suffering
You have suppressed my destructive self
By leading through tangled woods and barren hills
I deserve nothing from your hand
But I ask for mercy
There is nothing I can demand from you
I have no right to hold you accountable
However, I am a child adopted into your family
I am a co-heir with Christ
You have allowed me to be a father for half of a year
For six months I have received joy from parenting
If only that could be permanent
If only my role was not hanging in the balance

But you can do as you wish
My will is bent to yours
I have an eternal inheritance that is no less real
I will dwell in joy and light eternal

There is my strength
I remember my rock

Habakkuk starts by complaining about the corrupt state of his nation.  God replies by telling him that He will bring a horror filled invasion.  Habakkuk submits to God’s will.  Habakkuk gains nothing except a broadened perspective of God.  That is more precious than life.  Difficult things sharpen our thinking and our vision.

“Rejoice in the Lord always.  I will say it again: Rejoice!”  How do you do that when you are facing being swept away with the rest of your people?  There has been an economic meltdown.  There is no food to eat.  Habakkuk may have been killed soon after writing this.  We are left with a call to rejoice even in the face of disaster.  I am seeking God’s face so that I can rejoice in spite of my circumstances.  It is hard.

1. How did Habakkuk react physically to hearing the word of God?
2. Despite the dissipation of resources, how has Habakkuk resolved to react?
3. How does God change Habakkuk’s feet?
4. How can someone who is trembling walk with surety on mountain heights?
5. How can a Christian triumph even though they lose everything?

Going Deeper

The president of Moody, Dr. Nyquist, talked about how ‘faith defying’ circumstances can become ‘faith defining’ circumstances.  My wife and I received difficult news again.  As another potential storm rolls our way, we must allow our reaction to circumstances that could defy our faith to define a deeper faith.  As I write this I am both trembling at what God may do and rejoicing in the God of my salvation.

Habakkuk transitions from a man who demands God acts in ways that he dictates.  Now Habakkuk is bowed in awe before a God who acts as He wills.  God can do whatever He wishes.  From being the God of Israel God becomes the Lord of all Creation in the mind of Habakkuk.  Do you need to move from a local God to a God of the universe?

1. What kind of writing are we reading now?
2. What has Habakkuk heard of?
3. What does Habbakuk ask God to remember in his wrath?
4. How does the passage move away from what Habbakuk initially asked for in chapter one?
5. How would being honest with God move you away from your demands?

Going Deeper

Observation

• What does God’s glory fill?
• What does God’s praise fill?
• What goes before God?
• What did God do to the nations?
• What tense is the passage written in?

Interpretation

• Does Habakkuk expect deliverence?
• How is God beautiful and terrible?
• What does this passage teach about the immensity of God?
• Why would Habbakuk recall the past acts of God?
• Who is the enemy here?

Application

• How can you accept your own fate and praise God?
• Do you perceive God as both beautiful and terrible?  Where?  When?
• Is there a secular domain if God fills everything?  How would this affect popular Christians’ views?
• What areas of your life do you behave as if God was absent?
• In the end what will happen to those who pursue sin?

Woe:  The word seems meaningless because of its lack of use.  However, when a word like ‘Woe’ is repeated several times in a passage we should take note.  Why are these people suffering the opposite of joy?  They indulge in crime, they have orgies, they have their idols.  These things that are meant to give joy are a cause for woe.  Our cars, our parties, our little vices are meant to give us joy.  Woe is where they leave us.

1. What word is repeated in verses 6, 9, 12, 15, and 19?
2. What is the city built with in verse 12?
3. What does the person give their neighbour in verse 15?
4. What does a person say to wood in verse 19?
5. Are there violent acts, problems related to alcohol, or idols taht you need to leave behind?

Going Deeper

Observation

• For what has God determined that the people exhaust themselves?
• With what will the earth be filled?
• With what will people be filled instead of glory?
• What cup is coming from god?
• Where is God and what must the earth be?

Interpretation

• To whom is God talking?
• How does this passage contrast with the rejoicing of 1:15?
• How does God show that the Babylonians crimes are not only against the nations taht they conquer but against him?
• How is verse 14 the centrepiece of all the woes?
• ‘Exposed’ in verse 16 is a reference to the uncovering of the foreskin.  How does that change how you read that verse?

Application

• How and when do you participate in a silent worship (cf. v. 20)?
• How can captive peoples today use the five woes as taunts?
• How do you rely on and give credit to:  your intelligence, wealth, logic, strength, military might, aesthetic abilities, pride of status and birth, tenacity, or problem solving skills (Achtmeier)?
• How do you care for the non-human creation as a part of a home and community that is made and loved by the Creator (Bruckner)?
• How do you honour God in your ability to earn money?

Injustice can not go unnoticed.  God sees time from a broader perspective.  Justice will ultimately win out.  It is strange that injustice can be used to execute justice by God in the short run.  However, in the end all of the injustice is finally repaid and the bank account is balanced.  In other religions people have seen this law at work over time and developed a concept of karma.  We see that God has designed the world with moral causality and in the end what you have got away with in the short run will be a horror to you.

1. How do the righteous endure?
2. What does the unrighteous man not have (v. 5)?
3. What happens to those who plunder many nations?
4. How do we see a righteous reaction to unjust action in this passage?
5. What is the moral reaction to the immorality in the USA?

Going Deeper

Observation

• What can we see about the one whose desires are not upright?
• How is the appetite of death described?
• What do debtors and creditors do with one who makes himself wealthy through extortion?
• When you plan the ruin of many people what do you forfeit?
• What building materials gain a voice in verse11?

Interpretation

• How will their sin find out the Babylonians?
• How is death an appropriate image for the appetite of Babylon?
• How does the accumulation of wealth bring trouble?
• How does scheming against others harm the schemer?
• Do inanimate objects speak of God and, in this case, matters of justice?

Application

• Does your pursuit of the American dream kill you?
• Has your nation acted unjustly?  In the long run what is the consequence for injustice by a nation?
• Are you able to write using dark imagery about godly topics?
• How are your schemes hurting you and others?
• Is there a situation where you can be comforted knowing that ultimately justice will prevail?

Habakkuk 1: 12 – 2:1

1. What observation about God leads Habakkuk to conclude that Israel will not die?
2. What is God’s purpose in appointing Babylon?
3. What perplexes Habakkuk about God’s actions?
4. How does Habakkuk show us ways to question God and keep our faith?
5. What has happened in your life that has left you wondering what God is doing?

A few times in my life God has left me wondering why things have turned so bad.  Often my circumstances are the direct result of my own poor decisions.  It is when I am not directly responsible that I complain to God.  However, questioning God is not always sinful.  We can wrestle with God in this cruel world whilst at the same time trusting that he is working things for good.  What situations are difficult for you to understand?

Going Deeper

Observation

• What does Habakkuk believe that God can not approve?
• What extended analogy does Habakkuk use from v. 14 – v. 17
• What do fish lack (v. 14)?
• What do Babylonians/Chaldeans worship?
• Where will Habakkuk station himself to listen to the reply?

Interpretation

• Why would belief that the LORD is everlasting lead to a conclusion that Israel will not be wiped out?
• How does the LORD’s inability to look on evil confuse the writer about God looking with favour on the treacherous?
• How might the Babylonian advance be like a net?
• What in reality would the Babylonians worship?
• Does habakkuk expect punishment from God because he has asked questions?

Application

• If God is eternal how is that related to the fate of Christians?
• How do you reconcile God with the existence of evil?
• How can there be such a thing as evil without a god?
• Which nations trust in their military might to influence the world?
• Will nations that trust in military might be able to prevail in the long run?

Habakkuk 1: 1-11

Habakkuk?  Yes.  Suzanne Osborne of The Chapel (www.chapel.org) has written an article in the church magazine (Sixteen:Nine Fall Issue, p. 10-11) inviting us to take a Joyride.  She then presents four weeks of study to be completed this fall.  The studies start in Habakkuk

1. What did Habakkuk receive?
2. What question does Habakkuk ask in verse two?
3. Who is God raising up?
4. What words highlight the speed of Babylonian advance?
5. What hardships has God raised up in your world?

Habakkuk had seen Josiah’s reforms dashed by his successor.  Israel was corrupt to the core.  Judah is also corrupt.  Habbakuk does not conclude that there is no god.  Habbakuk does not curse God and wait for destruction.  Habbakuk asks what God will do about the decline in Israel.  God pronounces swift and terrible judgement.  I read this.  I read history.  I see the moral and religious decline in the west and I shudder.

Going Deeper

Observation

• What is the relationship between the wicked and the righteous in verse 4?
• Where does God tell Habbakuk to look to be amazed?
• Whose honour do Babylonians promote?
• What do Babylonians gather like sand?
• What is the babylonian attitude to foreign kings and rulers?

Interpretation

• What is a lament?  How does this passage start like one?
• Which verses are spoken by Habbakuk and which by Yahweh/God?
• Why does God answer a complaint about domestic policy with an international response?
• How does the rising of Babylon put local conflict in perspective?  How would it shock Habbakuk?
• How does God foreshadow pouring out justice on the Babylonians?

Application

• How should a person respond when informed taht their way of life is at an end?
• How has shallow thinking led to superficial faith, agnosticism, and atheism?
• What are the five stages of grief and how does a mature Christian navigate them?
• How do Christians complain about domestic policy while missing the international picture?
• What can you do to bring a emotionally deep, internationally aware, and more intelligent faith to those around you?

Read through Philippians.

• How do you see unity upheld?
• How is joy used in the book?
• How does Paul use personal experience?
• How should your life be affected?

Philippians 4: 10-23

1. What was it good of the Philippians to do?
2. For what is Paul not looking?
3. What did Paul receive from Epaphroditus?
4. What is the financial attitude of a wealthy church like Philippi to a missionary like Paul?
5. How can your finances support the work of someone doing good far from home?

I have been a missionary and I know what it is to suddenly receive a financial gift when living on less than $200 per month.  I received an extra $100 per month froma small group of churches in England.  I now know what it is to have more money than I need for the essentials.  I can give more than the minimal 10% back to God.  What is the best way to avoid the love of money and to avoid being led astray by materialism?  Give money away to worthy causes.

Going Deeper

Observation

• Why does Paul rejoice greatly in this passage?
• What two extremes does Paul know?
• What secret has Paul learned?
• What did the Philippians do when Paul was in Thessalonica?
• As the Philippians have sought to supply Paul’s needs what will God do for the Philippians?

Interpretation

• Why is rejoicing mentioned repeatedly in the book of Philippians?
• How does ‘I can do everything through Christ who strengthens me’ relate to finances?
• Why isn’t, ‘my God will supply all your needs’ a blanket statement for all Christians?
• Why would it be encouraging for Philippi to hear about Caesar’s household?
• What is the purpose of this passage?

Application

• Is there someone who is overseas who might feel forgotten who you could encourage?
• How does your contentment come and go with financial security?
• How does Christ strengthening you for his work encourage you in times of need?
• Do you remember to write thank you cards?
• How would you answer those who use this passage to claim that God wants Christians to all be healthy and wealthy?