It’s mostly a new inspiration from the Word that makes me write. As I think of the Psalm that was “given” to me in prayer to read and the expansion of the knowledge, wisdom, and blessings that come from such a  lovely long reading session, I reminisce.  I ponder about the good old days – were they really good?  I do think a century ago news and information weren’t as overwhelmingly available as they are now. Do I really know what it was like without daily news, provocative headlines, rabble-rousing video footage,  commentators by the dozens, facts and falsehoods mingling that distorts world events right under my nose? 

The good old days on the farm, isolated and peaceful – really?  How did the news spread?  The neighbor on his horse bringing news of a new conscription for yet another war? How could the people of the village culture of medieval feudal Europe analyze and evaluate their kings and generals with a scarcity of information and authoritarian, rigid governments that expected instant obedience and unquestioned loyalty?

I think back further. News was always important.  The village of Nazareth where Jesus grew up was at a crossroads of two major trade routes that crossed ancient Israel – from Damascus and north of it into Mesopotamia to Egypt and from the East (just think silk and spices) to the Mediterranean.  The trade routes were important sources of news, mainly by word of mouth.  This meant that Jesus grew up with world news from a wide variety of sources.  Without a doubt, the latest snippets have been retold in the villages, with perhaps all the interpretation, exaggeration and selective emphasis that typify our media today.

It was a time when the nations were in turmoil.  Rome was powerful, but east of Palestine were the Parthians and Sassanids, powerful Iranian rulers from 247 BC to about 224 AD.  The Romans receded from the mainly tribal-oriented power base of the Parthians based on Hellenistic traditions.  The Sassanids were a centralized monarchy with a strong state ideology based on Persian identity and Zoroastrianism. After the conquest of Gaul (modern France, Belgium, and parts of Switzerland) in the West, Germania (northern Europe) was a persistent threat.  Several wars were provoked by the “barbarians” and fought by Rome with its superior army and multitudes of soldiers from all the conquered parts of the world (slave soldiers).  Indeed, war and rumors of war in the words of Jesus. (Matthew 24:6) We know that the Jewish Roman war of 66-70AD was to be a mere thirty years  after his Ascension. He told his disciples, see that you are not troubled.

With a clear and even superficial look at the ancient times before Jesus and the past two thousand years, it is easy to see that it’s never been different.  War is somewhere, always.  Just as the astonishing news of the Berlin Wall in Germany ushered in the fall of the mighty Soviet Union, a brutal war broke out on European soil.  The Bosnian war was like all the others about money and power mixed with a good shot of religion. The sexual abuses of, among others, the UN soldiers who were supposed to help bring about a solution and the mass murder in a city declared safe by the UN are stains and scandals on the organization, which is supposed to promote peace in the world.

Today… well, yes.  There is no shortage of news sources.  Carefully assessing what is available is the biggest challenge. War is raging, wild and ferocious. Red headlines announcing the latest developments blaring across our screens and hordes of journalists, analysts and other experts are working hard to process the information and convey it to people who need to know what’s going on in passing, between work and life demands.

Habakkuk wrote down his vision so that it could be read in passing, in other words on the run.  When the Chaldean threat hung over his people, he wrote the words, short and powerful, which echo in the cry of the Reformation and onwards to this day: The righteous shall live by faith. (Habakkuk 2:2,4 NKJV) 

The word for faith in Hebrew is also the word used for faithfulness and truth.  God’s faithfulness and truth stand firm, and we can risk our lives on it.  It is the source, the fountain of life.

For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see the light. (Psalm 36:10)

What, then, shall we say of these things, Paul writes in Romans 8.  If God is for us, who can be against us.  His words read like a fresh cool fountain in a hot desert for a scorched soul. He writes about creation, in the bondage of corruption, in the labour pangs of hope, sighing to be set free in the hope of the glorious freedom of the children of God. (8:21,22)

It is a hope that looks into the invisible, to the greater reality of what we believe with a simple base principle:

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. (8:5)

For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance. (8:24.25)

A little further in the chapter we come to the all-important statement that our heart and minds must manage and preserve – all things work together for good.  No mess is too big for God to sort out, to turn around and engineer for your benefit.

Indeed, this is not the end of the chapter. We know the words.  Let the Holy Spirit blaze it into our hearts.

 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written:

“For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” (8:35,36)

We are truly the slaughter-sheep of our time.  Every Christian value of truth, integrity, honesty, purity, honorability, and everything that deserves praise is attacked and suppressed.  The agenda of propaganda is deception and manipulation. It is important to judge our news with caution and wisdom and especially… without fear.  It is not essential to express an opinion about everything.  It is super-important to pray wisdom from God, which is promised unconditionally, so that we do not become double-hearted people.  (James 1:5-8)

Read again without the danger of over-familiarity.

Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (8:37-39)

Next time we will talk about God’s perspective on the nations and the Michtam psalms.