Captivity In The Lord - and - Prison - Vision - Provision

CAPTIVITY IN THE LORD AND PRISON VISION PROVISION. 4 the minor prophets chapter ix god uses assyria as his chastisement instrument28 chapter x.
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Other poverty occurs because of the unpredictability of our planet. A natural disaster such as an earthquake, tsunami, drought or flood can devastate whole communities, destroying crops, homes, possessions and livelihoods in a single moment. For example, a quarter of a million people lost their lives in the Boxing Day tsunami in that swamped coastal Indonesia and other parts of South East Asia, and many more survivors were left homeless and without any means to provide for themselves.

The Bible is very realistic in this regard. World Bank Publications, , The care of these three groups was repeatedly viewed as a yardstick of whether Jewish society was fulfilling its covenantal responsibilities. See, for example, Exodus Gleaning was one practice prescribed for this very situation. See, for example, the situation of Ruth and Naomi in Ruth 2: Compared to the billions of people who struggle to scratch out a daily existence, those in the world who have enough to satisfy their needs and more may seem blessed. And they are, economically speaking, at least.

However, having plenty can come at the cost of great harm to the individual, family, community or nation that has it and also to those who may suffer as a consequence. We will explore several situations of provision or wealth causing harm to those who gain it or those they exploit to do so.

Some national leaders attain provision or wealth through unjust means such as exploitation, force, corruption, theft and others. Brutal dictators and regimes take what they want, oppressing their own people through force and intimidation, living lives of luxury while their people struggle to survive. Burma, Zimbabwe, Libya…the list could go on. Some multi-national corporations exploit cheap labour markets, impose unsafe working conditions on desperate workers, or devastate local ecosystems in order to reap outsized profits.

Their gains occur at great cost to people and places unseen by home-country regulators and disconnected from the consumers who buy the products. Some individuals and organizations defraud or deceive household investors into taking excessive risks, without any concern for the people they might be hurting in the process.

These are just a few of the ways wealth is obtained to the detriment of others. Those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains. The consequences of such greed are often more than just damage to our own spiritual state and the deprivation of others economically.

Greed can also produce degradation of the environment—resulting in significant damage to the earth, which ultimately affects the capacity of others to live well and reduces future productivity for everyone. Sadly, in ancient Israel some people became rich through unjust means. In fact, much of the message of the Prophets targets economic injustice by those with wealth and power in Israel. Through spokespersons such as Amos, Micah and Jeremiah, God states that our worship is meaningless if we are accumulating wealth through the exploitation of others. If we say we love God, then this should be reflected in the way we treat others and conduct business.

Sadly, the mechanisms under the Law that sought to build a fair, just and compassionate society had been flouted and ignored. The rich gained ownership of much of the land in contravention of Leviticus Meanwhile, they perverted the justice system by bribery. As a result, those dispossessed of capacity to earn a living had to sell themselves into slavery. The way we earn, employ or manage others, conduct business, invest and spend our money can be just or unjust.

And this cannot be separated from our worship of God. We cannot love God and exploit other people in pursuit of wealth. Not all accumulation of wealth is a result of injustice. However, even when wealth is gained through legitimate means, it still has the potential to do great harm. There are many passages of Scripture that alert the reader to the truth that wealth is dangerous. Riches can cause all kinds of negative side effects:. Firstly , wealth can lead to pride and arrogance. Secondly , wealth frequently leads to self-sufficiency, complacency and a false sense of security. Jesus also notes the danger of wealth lulling us into a false sense of security, in his parable of the rich fool Luke It is only too easy to think that we have no need of God when our bellies are full, life is good, and the future seems assured.

Thirdly , wealth can also dull our senses to the deep needs around us, draining us of compassion and mercy. Jesus tells the parable of the rich man and Lazarus Luke Ironically, even in Hades, the rich man is obsessed with his own needs and still views Lazarus as nothing but a pawn. Fourthly , and most seductive of all, is the lure riches have in capturing our hearts and dividing our loyalties. This danger is also carefully spelled out for the people of Israel in Deuteronomy 8: These are sobering words. Perhaps this is why the writer of Proverbs 30 asks of God:.

The dangers of wealth are even more pronounced in the New Testament. Central to the attitude of Jesus is his statement:. No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. The word used here for wealth is mammon. Some translations, such as the NIV, capitalize this word to emphasise that Jesus is pitting one god against another. Both seek our allegiance and worship.

Wealth is not neutral. No wonder Jesus commented to his disciples after his encounter with the rich young man:. Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. For Jesus then, wealth is a dangerous thing.

Creed - My Own Prison

It is like a stick of dynamite—having the potential to do much good, but also to cause a lot of damage. And the more you have, the greater the risks. Fifthly , gaining provision and wealth may fuel dissatisfaction with what we have and, with it, the desire for more. Envy and covetousness can easily develop as we compare our lot with that of others who have more than we do. In fact, the drive to accumulate and to consume more makes us vulnerable to manipulation. We easily find ourselves perpetually desiring more. We have trained our appetites to always desire more.

Working out what is enough is exceptionally challenging within this environment. Perhaps this is what James was addressing when he wrote:. You covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts.


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You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures. Sixthly , we can become anxious and full of worry about the future provision of our needs. However, most people who have plenty also develop this insidious stress. Having more than the basic necessities seems to make us more anxious because now we have more stuff to worry about losing. And so they plan for their future provision at the cost of serving God and others in the here-and-now, developing rich and meaningful relationships, or living a balanced life. Still others lie awake at night worrying about whether a particular investment is safe or dreaming of how to get the house or car they really want.

In fact, more anxious energy is consumed on money matters than on almost anything else. Having more than the basic provision we need can be a burden. The well-known words of Jesus in Matthew 6 —spoken to a crowd who knew what it was like to struggle to make ends meet—are particularly pertinent:. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

A captive audience for salvation - leondumoulin.nl

This is a very provocative statement of Jesus. It is not easy to trust God—particularly if your economic future is uncertain. In him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. You who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him.

If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; everything old has passed away, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation…entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ. This reconciliation with God has enormous implications for every aspect of our lives, including economics.

Redeeming our use of money resources begins with the nurturing of biblical attitudes—from which right actions will flow. Three fundamental biblical attitudes are trusteeship, gratitude and contentment. The first humans were directed by God to take care of the Garden and all creatures and plants within it.

They were to view themselves as caretakers of the created order. God is the owner, who has entrusted management to us, to be exercised according to his purposes. King David affirms the same in his prayer in front of the people of Israel, at the establishment of the Temple building fund. We have no right to claim absolute ownership of any of our resources, neither money, possessions, business, abilities, physical environment nor heritage. We are merely trustees of whatever provision or wealth we receive. Fiduciary duty, or stewardship, is a key element of trusteeship.

While trustees are given a great deal of freedom to act and make decisions regarding resource allocation, they do so on behalf of the true owners or beneficiaries of the body they manage. And, of course, the greater the resources entrusted to them, the greater their responsibility. Craig Blomberg puts it this way: Acting as trustees of whatever wealth we have been given, is therefore foundational to a biblical perspective on provision and wealth.

These resources are not for us to do with as we please. How we use them is not our business alone either. They may accomplish this in a variety of ways, including donations, investments, and direct service. The command to use our resources for the benefit of poor people is given directly in the book of Exodus. For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the wild animals may eat.

You shall do the same with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard. Whoever owns land has a duty to let the poor use it free of charge one year in every seven, and even to let wild animals make use of it.

A captive audience for salvation

This command is repeated in Deuteronomy in even simpler terms:. The crucial point is that we are not to hoard the resources entrusted to us for ourselves, maintaining lifestyles, homes and church facilities beyond what is needed. As partners with God we have been called to participate in this cause with all the resources at our disposal—including our wealth. The reality is quite the opposite. If we have been born into a loving family, a prosperous country, a good educational system, a stable society with the rule of law, we have the good fortune needed to make it possible for hard work to pay off.

This is not to suggest that hard work never contributes to economic success. Clearly, it is often a factor. Yet even intelligence and creative genius needed to make hard work fruitful are gifts from God.

And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift? Biblically, the response to the blessing of provision and abundance is deep gratitude, even if our own work played a major role in generating our wealth. Yet even among Christians, affluence seems to breed ingratitude and a sense of entitlement—as if we are somehow owed something. This betrays an inflated view of our own importance, and a very limited awareness of gift, grace and good fortune in our lives. Another factor that prevents us from experiencing gratitude is envy.

It is easy to begrudge others for what they have, rather than being content and grateful for what we have if we see ourselves primarily as consumers, rather than servants. Western culture feeds this envy. Marketing, advertising, and even entertainment encourage us to make living like the rich our aspiration. In doing so, we crave for what others have—not only their possessions but also their abilities and circumstances. In contrast, the Bible commands us not to covet anything that belongs to our neighbor—whether positions at work, salaries, economic opportunities or bank balances—but to develop a growing gratitude for what we have been given.

How can we become more thankful? We become more thankful through the simple act of giving thanks every day for whatever we have that we appreciate. Giving thanks actually changes our attitude. Gratitude leads to contentment. Contentment is a delicious feeling in itself, and it is the antidote to greed and envy. In this vision, it is possible to have enough and to cease longing for more. And in a letter written from a prison cell, Paul shares something of his own journey. Not that I am referring to being in need; for I have learned to be content with whatever I have.

I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need.

Seventy Years in Babylon

I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Both Paul and the far-from-wealthy Philippian church he is writing to were barely surviving economically. Their attitude of being content in all economic situations challenges those who live in plenty to find contentment in what they have. Contentment is knowing what is enough.

What is enough profit? Given that none of us have a true gauge on what is sufficient and what is excessive, we will need help from others. What would it be like for Christians to meet in small groups to share their purchasing plans and reflect together whether they reflect true needs leading to gratitude and contentment, or envious aspirations that will lead merely to a sense of entitlement and discontent? So few Christians have tried this that it is hard to know what effect it might have simply to share our ideas about what is enough in practical terms.

Developing right attitudes to provision and wealth will inevitably lead to adjustment in the way we live. This was a well-used word in the Greek world. In ordinary usage, it referred to having something in common with someone. When Paul, in particular, uses koinonia , it carries this strong sense of partnership, including the call to financial partnership. God provided for the needs of the individuals, through the resources of community. Of course, how this might be expressed in our various twenty-first century contexts will depend on a variety of factors.

History has shown that collective ownership generally works out poorly. Yet some still practice full economic sharing within a highly-trusted community. Other faith communities might seek to pool donations from the wealthy to distribute to the poor. Still others might choose to give individually to specific people or to charitable organizations that provide for needy people.

The Bible prescribes not the method, but the attitude. God provides for his people in the plural, even though the resources may be entrusted to individuals as stewards. Wright, Paul For Everyone: The Prison Letters London: Westminster John Knox Press, , The temptation of those who have much to become isolated from those who have little is very real. High-fenced houses, air-conditioned cars, a circle of friends limited to our own socio-economic group, and a church similarly restricted—all these conspire to keep the well-to-do trapped in their own wealthy enclaves. Those who have little are effectively banished from their world.

This means wealthy people often have minimal or no relationship with those who struggle financially—either at home or abroad. Their understanding of the circumstances of those who lack basic provision is severely limited by the geographic and social distance. As noted earlier, the people of Israel were specifically commanded to care for widows, orphans fatherless and foreigners.

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,. Verse Click for Chapter. New International Version "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, New Living Translation "The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed, Berean Literal Bible " The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because of which He has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, Contemporary English Version "The Lord's Spirit has come to me, because he has chosen me to tell the good news to the poor.

The Lord has sent me to announce freedom for prisoners, to give sight to the blind, to free everyone who suffers, Good News Translation "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has chosen me to bring good news to the poor. Babylon is this world. The captivity is our existance here -- our stay in the physical world. The seventy years describes the spiritual time limit that God has given the people of Babylon captives and citizens alike to convert into the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And seventy symbolic years have been given to the planet as well.

At the end of our own seventy years i. God has structured a divine food that keeps this planet from dying, and until the day that food is taken away, Christ's offer will remain in effect. The tribes of Israel had to suffer the exile so that God could extend His offer of forgiveness to every person on the planet and to make us understand our incarceration here.


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    8. We are all born into the captivity of Babylon and each of us must remain a prisoner in this foreign society until the day we make our escape by following Jesus Christ -- who is the only path that leads back to God's Jerusalem. The kingdom of heaven is not on this planet, so we cannot enter it during our life in the flesh. But we must begin the journey here by allowing the word of God to take dominion over our heart. The only way to reach God's Jerusalem is through spiritual conversion.

    We must leave sin behind and live according to the directives of God -- turning our lives over to the commandments taught by Jesus Christ. Until we do that we have to remain captive to Babylon -- plying out the seventy years of our existence here under the dominion of forces which try persistently to separate us from the compassionate and loving ways commanded by God. Reinforcing metaphor by circumstance, God has handed the tribes of Israel over to the pagan world, scattering them to its farthest ends. As a part of this trampling of the House of Israel, the city of Jerusalem in Palestine has spent most of the last years in ruins and under foreign rule.

    God, then, has created a single captivity with dual themes. And it exists on two levels. One, as we have seen, applies to each of us personally, and the other applies to the world in general. The first relates to our body and soul, and the other to the planet with all its cities and nations and rulers. For the world in general the age of the pagans cannot end until Christ returns in glory, but in our own individual lives there is a process which brings it to an end much sooner and that process has been at work in the world since the day of the original Pentecost almost years ago.

    Babylon began to dissolve the moment Jesus was first preached. Every conversion into Christ terminates a part of the year exile. While we tend to view Babylon only in terms of its world role, our escape from captivity always occurs on the smaller personal level of individual salvation -- a process virtually always completed within the framework of the seventy years prescribed by scripture.

    Paul showed that our physical body dies as far as God is concerned the moment we are baptised. This is obviously the mechanism of our escape. Paul said that as soon as we are born into Jesus Christ, we die to our physical body by joining Jesus in his own death. This action, in terminating the reign of our mortal body over our souls, ends the seventy years. Thus it terminates the reign of Babylon in our lives. That ends the exile individually -- a process that happens one by one person by person.

    The global end Armageddon -- is the end which captures the most attention. Not just because it heralds the moment of the entry of God's 'chosen people' into the kingdom of heaven, but also because of the gripping and fiery spectacle predicted to precede that procession. The world's fiery climax will trumpet the return of Christ to this earth, bringing with Him the Last Judgment and the dramatic opening of the gates of the third heaven. The gates of this new kingdom cannot be opened until Jesus returns in glory: Because the year captivity applies both to the flesh and to the life of the world, Babylon can be seen in universal terms as well.

    Our sinful body was born into a world that has persisted in unrighteous behavior since the beginning of man. Jesus ended this wicked history when He appeared in Galilee. Seeing the captivity in these terms pushes the age of Babylon back to the dawn of human history -- back to the banks of the Euphrates where the people of Babel first gathered into civilized units and began to build their tower.

    In this sense, 'Babylon' is a code word for earth itself, and 'Egypt' the 'furnace of iron' -- Dt. It speaks to us in metaphore of a captivity within physical creation out of which the galaxy and its sun, like Moses, has brought us temporarily to life, but which, also like Moses, cannot sustain that life for very long. In this sense, Moses not only led the Israelites to a 'promised land' -- a religious 'Eden' in the dark chaos of material existance -- his actions gave his people temporary relief from the captivity of Babylon as well.

    Babylon's presence in the guise of Egypt was an invisible captivity that the Israelites were unaware of. Nor did they realize that the Egypt of Moses' days was actually the first of Babylon's kingdoms to actually pit itself against the developing House of Israel. Instead of securing on earth a safe harbor in God out of the land they had been given, the Israelites began to convert it back into the substance of Babylon as soon as they arrived there.

    They could not overcome the stain Satan had painted across their souls. The rules of Moses were not powerful enough for them to resist his call to sin. This invisible plunge back into the captivity of Babylon was forseen by God and so He had Moses warn the people of the consequence of their sins: All this happened so that God could show the House of Israel that the words of scripture are absolute and will all come true.

    Anyone can read Moses' words today and look back and see how powerfully God has fulfilled them. We can expect the same degree of fulfillment from Christ's words as well. While he was on the island of Patmos, John was shown in a vision that the age of the pagans the seventy years of pagan dominion over Jerusalem would be divided into three eras. Hundreds of years earlier, the angel who appeared to Daniel announced the same kind of division. While he was still in captivity to the original Babylon and wondering about his people's release from the '70 year' captivity which Jeremiah had written about, the angel Gabriel appeared to Daniel and explained this period to him in terms of 'weeks' of years.

    Adding this divine multiplier 7 implied multiple lifetimes, showing that the angel's explanation had its focus on the ultimate seventy years -- i. Not only that, the term 'weeks' of years qualified the answer, showing that it was not the entire year captivity, that was being discussed, but a facet of it, i. That is the question Daniel wanted answered.

    The angel focused the period on the reign of Christ, the time involved in the release from this captivity. The angel divided the 70 weeks of years into three parts. All three relate to the world's rule of violence. And they apply to us today because we are still living in one of the times they describe. Gabriel divided the seventy year pagan reign over Jerusalem into 3 eras based on the intensity of the violence associated with the periods. There would be two very harsh battles between pagans and Christians, one at the beginning and the other at the end; and sandwiched between them, a long period of much milder hostility -- a period the angel termed, 'the time of trouble'.

    True to this pattern, the Christian era began with lions and slaughter; then it passed into a long period of relative peace during which Church leaders took dominion over the earth. At the world's conclusion the Christian era will once again be subjected to intense violence, coming to an end under the boot of the beast. The three parts, then, can be seen in the events of our own time. We live today just before the dawn of the second war.