Obadiah

Over the next few days, I'm going to go into some of the shorter books (one chapter books), and talk about their message a little. The reason for doing this is that it reminds us that books have a greater message- a beginning, middle and end. When we read Scripture in small chunks, we can forget this.

Today we begin with the Old Testament prophet of Obadiah. Here is a fire-and-brimstone kind of prophet. His message is that of anger toward the nation of Edom. First, a little background. Isaac, the son of Abraham, had two sons- Jacob and Esau. From Jacob came the nation of Israel, while from Esau came the nation of Edom. They were supposed to leave each other alone because of their close familial ties. However, when Israel came to be invaded by raiders, Edom took the command too literally and did not come to Israel's aid. In fact, they rejoiced in the destruction of the neighbors and may have actually enjoyed the spoils of battle. This, according to God (through Obadiah), is not okay.

The Edomites were a mountain people, living (literally) above the Israelites. And a mountain mindset can bring with it many attitudes, two of which are pretty unhealthy. One is pride. They were so heavily defended by the mountains that they felt invincible. "Who can bring me down?" they thought (verse 3). God's answer was that no one is outside the reach of God's justice (verse 4). Pride is deadly. What added to the pride, though, is detachment (the second unhealthy attitude). They could probably watch as the invaders came, but felt no compassion and no connection to the slaughter. They watched and said "thank goodness that's not me."

These two mountain problems followed humanity through, even to today. I, and probably you, live in a different kind of mountain. You are probably pretty safe from danger. Even when tragedy "strikes home," it doesn't impact you and I very deeply. In fact, you and I may actually benefit from tragedies around the world (sad to say, but I can guarantee that you and I benefit from tragedies around the world). Is it okay, then, to just look out for you and your family, to do what's right by them and not to others?

Obadiah would say no. Obadiah would remind us that God's kingdom is worldwide, and involves the people we so easily detach from. Obadiah would hold up the mirror of pride and ask if we are Edom or Israel in this case. So today I use this moment to pray for humility and a sense of connectedness to the world around me.