When Captives are Set Free
When captives are set free, we rejoice—but the silence that followed October 7 reveals how deeply the church needs repentance, courage, and faith.
Two years ago, in the final hours of the biblical holiday Sukkot—the Festival of Tabernacles—the nation of Israel was brutally attacked. More than 1,200 people were murdered, and 251 civilians were taken hostage.
One week ago, in the first hours of Sukkot this year, I gathered with a few others to pray for the peace of Jerusalem—and especially for the fate of those still held captive.
Today, in the final hours of Sukkot, all of the living hostages were released.
That is a miracle.
Praise be to the God who has not forgotten—and will never forget—his people.
“The whole company that had returned from exile built temporary shelters and lived in them. From the days of Joshua son of Nun until that day, the Israelites had not celebrated it like this. And their joy was very great.”
— Nehemiah 8:17–18
The Wounds That Remain
Two years of war have marred the land and the people who call it home. Though the gunfire may grow quiet, the wider war unleashed globally on October 7, 2023, remains unresolved.
Hamas’s attack left families shattered. Iran has attempted to annihilate Israel multiple times directly and through its proxies on every side. The entire civilian population has lived in-and-out of bomb shelters or displaced from their homes altogether, while the young soldiers of the IDF have faced unimaginable danger to bring the captives home.
While Hamas hid behind their own children—in schools, hospitals, and UN facilities—the IDF stood in front of them to defend their nation and innocent life. 891 Israeli soldiers have been killed. The grief is deep. And yet, in the midst of so much death, God has answered prayer.
When the war subsides, I pray that all who call Israel home—Israeli and Arab—can find some measure of rest. But the trauma will remain for a long time, and the ache of what was lost will not easily fade.
The Silence That Spoke Louder
It is the silence that will be most difficult for me to forget—the near-total absence of moral clarity from much of the Western world, and from mainstream Christianity, including Christian media and the voices of prominent leaders, both national and local. I wish it were not the case, but that silence only amplified the volume of death chants and calls for Israel’s annihilation, nourishing fertile soil for antisemitism’s resurgence across the world.
It grieves me to say that in the past two years, I have never been more ashamed to be connected with Christianity. At the same time, I have never been more committed to live faithfully within it.
I have prayed often for God’s forgiveness, that he would soften the church and draw us to corporate repentance. No one is beyond his mercy, but I fear many hearts have hardened against his word.
The Cost of Silence
In the past two years, Christianity has shown that it prefers private reflection to collective repentance, indifference to conviction, and solitary prayer to shared intercession. We are told to speak less, avoid controversy, and “focus on Jesus.” Yet to be the peacemakers our Lord blessed means stepping into places that are anything but peaceful.
I fear that much of Christian leadership has remained silent not out of a desire to lead well, but out of refusal to lead when it matters most. In the face of evil, many have stood speechless—some from ignorance, some from unbelief, and some from fear.
But taking a political or theological stance that has no place for Israel does not grant us license to avoid naming evil for what it is—especially when that evil wounds the very people through whom our faith first came, including many Jewish followers of Jesus.
Yet the silence of many has made the courage of a few all the more radiant. I am deeply encouraged by the pastors, leaders, and ordinary believers who have chosen to speak and act with both righteousness and compassion. They have endured opposition and public shame, yet have stood firm in calling the nations to bless Israel, pray for her peace, and intercede for her enemies and all innocents in the crossfire.
Faithful in the Face of Evil
As believers, we are not called to outrage, activism, or to turn our pulpits into political platforms. But we are called to condemn evil, to cling to what is good, and to take up the cause of the vulnerable as if it were our own.
Every generation faces the spirit of Amalek. In ours, it looks like Hamas. It looks like the attack on the Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur. It looks like the emboldened darkness that now calls good evil and evil good. Yet even as we name evil for what it is, we must guard our hearts from becoming what we condemn.
You can grieve loss on every side.
You can pray for the peace of Jerusalem without condoning every political or military action.
You can mourn innocent lives and still believe God’s covenant stands.
And while we wait for his justice, our call remains the same: to love what God loves, to stand where he stands, and to hope in what he has promised.
The Deliverer Who Will Come
Today, I rejoice in the release of the captives and the glimpse of relative stability, prayerfully, returning to the land. I also grieve the tragic witness the church has offered in these days.
But the story of captivity is not over.
Jesus echoed the prophets, who foresaw a final day when Israel would again be surrounded by the nations. Just as God raised up deliverers in Egypt, we hold a blessed hope that he will send his Messiah once more—not as the suffering servant, but as the king who brings justice and peace.
When that day comes, it won’t be a peace deal brokered by pompous and fallen diplomats. It will be Jesus Messiah who sets free the captives and brings the Lord’s favor, forever.
Until then, we rejoice greatly in the God who never forgets what he swore.
Psalm 126
When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
we were like those who dreamed.
Our mouths were filled with laughter,
our tongues with songs of joy.
Then it was said among the nations,
“The Lord has done great things for them.”
The Lord has done great things for us,
and we are filled with joy.
Those who sow with tears
will reap with songs of joy.
Those who go out weeping,
carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
carrying sheaves with them.
All scripture quotations are ESV.
On the Hard Parts
Small groups sometimes skip the hard parts of Scripture, but they’re where God forms us. Learn why we avoid them—and how reading the whole Bible, together, changes everything.
Our small group is about to finish the final book of the Torah: Deuteronomy. Two years, five biblical books, countless Sunday afternoons gathered around coffee and Bibles spread across the living room. The hum is familiar now—pens click, pages turns, sometimes a late arrival slips in with an apology. Someone opens in prayer, and we settle into another conversation about faith, obedience, and what it means to love God with all our heart.
It’s been good. Stretching. Holy, even. That’s what the hard parts of the Bible do.
In many years of leading groups now, I’ve noticed how rare it is to actually spend long periods of time in places like this—in the thick of laws, genealogies, and strange stories that don’t resolve neatly. Most of us like to drift into the same comfortable corners of Scripture. No one says, “Let’s skip Habakkuk.” But we do.
We skim the tricky stuff; treat the prophets like awkward relatives at a reunion—best acknowledged from a distance.
And when we do, we miss something sacred.
Why We Avoid the Hard Parts
We avoid the hard parts of Scripture for many reasons.
Emotional Avoidance—Hard passages tend to stir up things we’d rather not face. They challenge our tidy categories of “good God, good life.” Sometimes, we’re not avoiding the text—we’re avoiding the emotions it awakens (or fails to awaken). Many of us have come to the Bible expecting it to be a self-help manual and for God to play the role of our therapist. We struggle with the passages that either don’t appear to do those things or do them too well. We like God’s mercy but struggle with his judgment. So when Scripture steps outside the lines of our expectations, it’s hard to know how to respond. “This is in the Bible?” we realize, embarrassed.
Cultural Conditioning—We live in a world that prizes positivity, productivity, and relevance. Within evangelical culture especially, spiritual growth is often measured by how encouraged we feel after an encounter with the Bible—not by how challenged we are. When a passage doesn’t yield a quick “life application,” we move on. We expect Scripture to inspire us, not to unsettle us. We prefer a verse that fits into an Instagram square to a story that forces us to rethink our own worldview. The hard parts require endurance—slow reading and learning to sit in tension without resolution, sometimes for a very long time. Most of us have never been trained for that kind of spiritual stamina. And sometimes, we’re simply too exhausted. After a long week, we crave encouragement, not confrontation.
Fear of Getting It Wrong—Many believers fear they’re not equipped to interpret difficult texts. We’re embarrassed by that. The Bible can feel inaccessible. It’s easy to feel intimidated by how little we think we understand. So we don’t even try. Especially in small groups, we also fear those passages might stir up disagreement or silence. So leaders often default to the verses that make everyone nod. But those fears are actually an advantage. We can bring dumb questions, admit our disbelief, and step forward into conversations with the hearts and minds we have, not the ones we’re suppose to have. Its in those moments where the light bulbs flicker on and shine brightest.
If we’re honest, we avoid the hard parts because they’re disorienting. It’s not that they’re impossible to understand—it’s that they’re unfamiliar. We avoid them for reasons that sound reasonable enough, but when we finally engage them, we find ourselves pulled into a story that isn’t centered on us. To truly understand it, we have to give more of ourselves than we often want to. Books like Leviticus, Ezekiel, or Romans confront us with truths that stretch far beyond our culture and lifetime.
But avoidance comes with a cost.
The Cost of Avoidance
When we skip the hard parts of Scripture, we end up with a God made in our own image.
The Bible was never meant to be read in fragments—ten minutes over coffee, a verse for the day, a quote for encouragement. It wasn’t written in a vacuum or designed to fit neatly into our study guides, devotionals, or theology handbooks. Yet that’s often how we approach it. The hard parts resist those models.
And so, in avoiding them, we lose our grip on the story’s sweep. Ironically, the very truths we claim to cherish are found most clearly in the places we neglect. The key to unlocking the story of Scripture is not in the Gospels or Psalms—it’s in the unopened books, waiting to be found by those willing to linger there.
Our avoidance of these texts has bred spiritual shallowness, biblical illiteracy, and costly forgetfulness. It’s possible to attend a Bible study faithfully for years, to memorize verses and fill in workbook blanks, yet never find the thread that connects the garden to the eternal throne. Worse still, it’s possible to do all this and never realize the part God has written for you within that story.
In skipping the hard parts, I fear we’ve so often forfeited what it means to become true disciples of Jesus.
Because the hard parts are not there to confuse us. They’re there to reveal God. Every law, lament, and obscure oracle is a window into the heart of a God who refuses to abandon his plan. He invites us into his story—one that is far bigger and more demanding than the version we often settle for.
Why We Need to Wrestle Together
But when a small group dares to tackle the hard parts of Scripture together, something beautiful happens. We learn to depend on one another—and on the Spirit—in new ways. No one person has the easy answers. We grow side by side. Everyone is discipled, and everyone is discipling.
This is how the early believers learned. They didn’t gather around curated lists of “most encouraging passages for modern life.” They opened the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings—the same Scriptures Jesus used to explain himself. Every community had its Torah-guide, its elders—those “able to teach,” who helped the rest discern the wisdom of the oldest books and apply it to their sphere.
Studying Scripture in community guards us from arrogance and isolation. It reminds us that no one “owns” the truth; we discover it together as a diverse people learning to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, into the image of the Messiah.
Our mission as small groups is to disciple one another in how to enter Scripture on its own terms. Our goal is fluency and growth—to ask how the Bible uses its own language, patterns, and designs to reveal truth, and how those truths challenge our assumptions. Learning to situate the Bible within its own worldview is difficult work, but it can be done.
And the simplest, least-used tool for it?
Repetition.
Reading and rereading entire books—again and again.
The Bible is meditation literature. It’s meant to be reread, pondered, and wrestled with together. Later passages illuminate the earlier ones; earlier stories give shape to what follows. The goal isn’t to revise original meaning but to listen more carefully to it—to enter into the divine conversation already unfolding, and stay there long enough to be changed by it.
A Way Back into the Hard Parts
The best way to venture into deeper waters is to start small—but start. And start near the beginning. In the first Bible study I ever led, we began with Genesis 1.
Choose a short, “hard” passage and sit with it.
Don’t rush to explain it. Read it aloud. Ask what others notice. Wait through the awkward silence; let it do its work. Push one another to find something—anything—that stands out. Ask what this passage says in its own story, to its original audience, before asking what it means for you.
Embrace confusion as an act of worship.
You don’t have to have it all figured out. The best Bible studies are the ones where someone says, “I don’t know what I’m missing here, but I want to find out.” That first Genesis study I led didn’t use a guide or workbook. We simply showed up having read a few chapters and talked about what we saw. I didn’t have all the answers (I still don’t!)—and that made everyone else feel free to learn alongside me.
Use good tools, but don’t outsource.
Commentaries and study guides are helpful. Still, read the actual Bible. Learn to use a concordance—and then teach others how to do the same. Let Scripture interpret itself. Train your eyes to look for patterns, repetitions, echoes. Ask, “Where have I heard this before?” and “What does this remind me of elsewhere in the Bible?”
Keep the bigger picture in view.
Every hard passage belongs to a larger story. It’s easy to zoom in so closely on a verse that we lose sight of the arc it lives within. Try reversing that. Ask how the larger story—the structure of the book, the covenantal thread, the themes, the author—shapes the meaning of the smaller part. What bigger picture is at stake?
Pray Psalm 1—and then live it.
Blessed is the one who meditates on the Torah day and night. Make that your aim: not just to gain knowledge, but to marinate in the earliest books of the Bible until they reshape how you see the world. Anyone who’s studied with me knows that I’m never not studying Genesis. The stories of the Torah are the most underestimated and least utilized tools for understanding the rest of Scripture. Every syllable of the Bible echoes back to those early books. Even when you’re knee-deep in Romans, remember Genesis. Remember Exodus. Remember Leviticus. These are the words that gave every later word its meaning.
When Small Groups Become Holy Ground
When small groups read the hard parts, the atmosphere changes. The words come alive in new ways. The discussion begins to shift. It takes time; returning to the same grass and mowing over it in different ways. But in those moments, the living room turns into holy ground.
We begin to see Scripture not as a collection of stories to inspire or fix us, but as one breathtaking reality that includes us. We discover that God’s hardest words are his most loving, meant to purify our hearts and prepare us for an eternity in his presence. But if we want to know him, we must be willing to open the whole book.
When we study the hard parts, we learn to live the hard parts. We find courage for obedience, clarity in confusion, and hope that outlasts circumstance.
So gather your people. Open the Scriptures.
Turn the pages that intimidate you.
Ask the hard questions.
And when you do, expect the Spirit to show up. Because the same God who spoke from the mountain still speaks from the pages—and he has not changed.
A God I Have Not Known
The headlines flicker like static on a broken radio: Israel accused, Gaza in ruins, the Middle East a tinderbox waiting for a spark. At first, urgency stirred prayer.
The headlines flicker like static on a broken radio: Israel accused, Gaza in ruins, the Middle East a tinderbox waiting for a spark. At first, urgency stirred prayer. But as the rage simmers on, prayer drifts to the background. It’s easy to grow numb while the war groans on.
In the static, I asked the Lord what he was saying in this season. He led me not to prophecy or psalms, but to four quiet chapters in the Hebrew Bible: Ruth.
More Than a Love Story
The first time I studied Ruth, it was sold to me as a dating manual: “Wait for your Boaz, girls!” Later, I heard it taught as a Cinderella story of struggle and grace, or a women’s guide to friendship and redemption. Those readings aren’t wrong, but they are small.
Ruth’s story reveals something far deeper—and more dangerous.
The story begins with tragedy. A family from Bethlehem flees famine and resettles in Moab, enemy territory. There, the father and both sons die, leaving Naomi and her daughters-in-law destitute.
It’s a grim outlook for the vulnerable women bereft of their husbands. Naomi decides to head back home, perhaps hopeful that she can somehow scrape out an existence within the borders of her homeland. But as a displaced, aging widow, she’s in a dangerous position. In order to avoid dragging her daughters-in-law into it, she releases them from familial obligation, charging them to go back home to their own families and their own gods. Naomi implies “I’m a lost cause. Save yourselves while you still can.”
One daughter-in-law, Orpah, departs. But Ruth clings to her.
The Hebrew word for “cling” is the same as in Genesis 2: “a man shall cling to his wife.” Ruth utters the famous vow to Naomi:
“Where you go I will go, your people will be my people, and your God my God.”
The passage rings with the echos of Eden: bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. Ruth welds herself to Naomi, willing to accept whatever lies ahead: poverty, debt, humiliation, danger, possibly even death. United as one, they head back to Israel.
Faith in the God of Israel
Those familiar with the story know how it goes. After returning to the land, Ruth, the young and able-bodied member of the impoverished duo, gathers leftover scraps from the barley harvest in a relative’s field. Boaz notices Ruth’s devotion. He blesses her, not merely for kindness, but for seeking refuge under the wings of Israel’s God. Her loyalty to Naomi is evidence of faith in the covenant-keeping God.
“She asked him, ‘Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me – a foreigner?’
Boaz replied, ‘I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband – how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. May the LORD repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.’”
Boaz blesses Ruth—an average, Gentile woman—because of her faithfulness to a powerless, wandering, Jewish refugee. He doesn’t just praise her benevolence and compassion. Instead, Boaz proclaims Ruth’s wisdom to stand by Naomi even when things looked bleak, trusting that Naomi’s God—the God of Israel—would come through for them both. Later in the story, Boaz comes through for Naomi by marrying Ruth, effectively saving both women from a life of misery and probable death.
But curiously, this time reading through Ruth I noticed it’s not the women that are the focus of the salvation narrative. It’s actually Naomi’s property and the family name that become the object of attention.
“Then Boaz announced to the elders and all the people, ‘Today you are witnesses that I have bought from Naomi all the property of Elimelek, Kilion and Mahlon. I have also acquired Ruth the Moabite, Mahlon’s widow, as my wife, in order to maintain the name of the dead with his property, so that his name will not disappear from among his family or from his home town. Today you are witnesses!’
The story ends with the birth of Obed, Ruth and Boaz’s son, grandfather of King David. But the true redemption rests with Naomi—her land restored, her family name secured, her hope renewed. And all because a Gentile woman refused to abandon her.
Ruth is not just a tale of romance or personal friendship. It is a call to the nations: love the Jewish people in their darkest hour, and trust the God who promised to bless the world through them.
The Question Ruth Sets Before Us
In times of war and rising hostility, Ruth’s story pierces me. Am I willing to love a people—and a God—I perhaps do not fully understand? Am I willing to cling to their story, even when it costs me comfort, reputation, or safety?
Too often I’ve read Ruth as if it were about me—my needs, my redemption. But Ruth confronts me with something larger: faith in Israel’s God revealed through love for Israel’s people. This dainty, often trivialized book is, in fact, a powerhouse of wisdom for Gentiles in an age of love grown cold.
The world still trembles like a tinderbox. Israel’s neighbors rage. The nations plot. And the family of Messiah suffers in the shadows of our indifference.
In Israel’s dark days—much like today—when the world was hostile and everything seemed broken, the book of Ruth revealed truth and human inadequacy. It forces us to look plainly at our hearts, prayers, commitment to scripture, and the role God expects of those who bear His name. To read Ruth responsibly, to pray rightly for neighbor and foe alike, requires humility to take ourselves out of the center.
That preaches well. But it lives hard.
Love was hard in the days of Cain, harder in the days of Noah. It was hard in Naomi’s day, and it remains hard now.
Too often, I have read Ruth in a way that remakes God in my image. I’ve settled her story into my own framework, quick to dismiss Proverbs 3:5, quick to follow Orpah’s path—turning away from a God and a people I did not know. But as scholar John Walton reminds us,
“[God] has given us sufficient revelation so we might have some sense of his plans and purposes and trust him sufficiently to become participants in those plans and purposes...Our response ought to be to acknowledge the wisdom and authority of God...our response is to trust him.”
Ruth—a powerhouse of wisdom for Gentiles in an age of love grown cold.
Meanwhile the nations reel, and the family of Messiah withers in the shade of Jonah’s tree. Like Jonah sulking under his vine, I sometimes find myself nursing resentment there too. Yet our God is faith to meet broken people under the trees. He asks: “Should I not have compassion on them too—the people I’ve loved and named as my own? If you are not willing to embrace them, you are not willing to embrace me. Am I a God you do not know?”
The chance to love like Ruth is now. The book of Ruth insists that Gentile faith is proven not by words alone, but by loyal love for the people God calls his own. Will I look on God’s people with compassion? Will I look on their enemies this way?
Give us the eyes to see, oh Lord. Give us the ears to hear. Awaken us to the call of your word and prepare our hearts for the frontier that awaits.
Don’t let our love grow cold.
What Does It Mean to Stand With Israel?
As bombs flew over Iran toward Israeli soil, the world watched, unsurprised, as the Iron Dome lit up the sky.
As bombs flew over Iran toward Israeli soil, the world watched, unsurprised, as the Iron Dome lit up the sky. The scales of the Middle East shifted again, deepening the political and humanitarian nightmare. Christians look on with questions:
How should believers respond to the events in the Middle East?
Should we pay attention, and why?
Are biblical prophecies unfolding?
Is Jesus coming back soon?
Do we take a side—and if so, which one?
Among Christians who “stand with Israel,” many do so from sincere compassion. They recognize Hamas’s attacks as evil and stand with the Jewish people because of their pain. Others are motivated by politics—Israel is our ally, so we defend her. Still others stand because Israel factors into “end-time” events, wanting to be on the Lion of Judah’s side when the Day of the Lord comes.
Covenant Connection
This relationship is central to Scripture yet often overlooked—or denied—in Christian teaching. If we stand with Israel only for politics, compassion, or eschatology, we risk missing the heart of the Father.
To stand with Israel as Gentile followers of Jesus means embracing a covenantal connection with the Jewish people.
As believers, if we only stand with Israel because we are politically motivated to do so, or because we don't want innocent people to get hurt, or because we have a static, eschatological-only use for the land of Israel and the Jewish people, then unfortunately, I believe we are standing for the wrong thing. Our sentiments may be well-intended, but alone they are alienating us from the Jewish people and from the heart of the Father Himself.
“Covenant” may sound vague or religious, but the Bible is clear: God is knitting believers from the nations together with His chosen people, Israel. For as much as we quote the book of Ephesians, it often seems as though we have missed it's central point:
“…remember that you [non-Jews] were once separated from Messiah, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Messiah Jesus you [non-Jews] who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Messiah. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both [Jew and non-Jew] one…that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace…you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Messiah…This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Messiah Jesus through the good news.
Ephesians 2:12-16, 3:4-6 (paraphrase)
God, in his great wisdom, is unveiling a new man made up of every tribe, nation, and language, that originates in Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, and grows from the root of the Jewish people.
It's easy to translate this to "Jews accept Jesus, get saved, convert to Christianity, and join the body of Christ." But that is a backwards understanding of the text.
Instead, it is Gentile believers who join themselves to Israel’s God through her Messiah. God has a plan to redeem the nation of Israel and the Jewish people and reveal himself to them by his timing and design. God has always invited non-Jews to play an intricate part in that plan while retaining their unique ethnic identities.
God Has Not Forsaken Israel
Israel is precious to God—the apple of his eye, his firstborn, the people on whom he set his love. Nothing has changed since the days God spoke those words through Moses and the prophets. It didn't change at the cross or the resurrection, and it remains unchanged today.
But many Christians have not been taught this. We’ve been taught that the Bible’s story centers on us and our sin, with Jesus offering forgiveness and heaven. Yet on Israel and her Messiah, the Bible presents a far bigger story—one many of us are unprepared to receive.
Paul warns Gentile believers not to become arrogant:
“Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in…what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? … Do not consider yourself superior to the other branches. You do not support the root, but the root supports you” (Romans 11, paraphrase).
This is not a “free pass” for Israel. Paul trusts God’s plan to bring them to redemption and warns Gentiles to honor the root that supports them.
The prophets echo the same call. Amos rebuked those who “do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph” while living in comfort (Amos 6). The Psalms call us to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122). Like Ruth cleaving to Naomi, or Jonathan binding himself to David, those who fear God seek the good of his people, even in their darkest hour.
A Covenant Stance
To stand with Israel as believers means committing ourselves to God’s purposes for his chosen people regardless of their nation’s current condition. We can adopt shoulder-to-shoulder stance of covenantal loyalty—honoring Israel’s suffering now and proclaiming her vindication to come. This is not blind support for every government policy or military action. Compassion and covenant are not enemies; we can still be moved for the innocent and believe in God’s covenant.
In great faith, we can step forward into the role of preparing the bride saying, "I'm going to join myself to you. I'm going to stand in truth and love for you when you are crumbling and burden by your mistakes. I'm going to cry out for you when you are too weak to whisper and intercede when you are too rebellious and arrogant to see the One who holds your victory. And I'm going to do this because your Messiah took compassion on a dog like me. I'm going to honor you as the greatest of all the brothers because your brother honored me. And he has not forgotten you."
Isaiah foresaw the day when Egypt, Assyria, and Israel would together be “a blessing on the earth” (Is. 19:24). The nations will stream to Jerusalem to learn God’s ways (Is. 2:2-3). We are invited to participate in that future now—by aligning our hearts with his covenant plan.
Our Choice
We can ignore this message and stay comfortable—scrolling past headlines, singing our worship songs, and congratulating ourselves for theologically explaining away the blessing that belongs to our brother.
Or we can humble ourselves. We can remove our Christian-centric lenses, thank God for the message that brought us this far, and take the next step—asking him to give us ears to hear what he is saying through his Word, seeking its wisdom to make sense of the world’s stage today.
We can join ourselves to his people: stand with them in truth and love when they are weak, pray for them when they cannot pray for themselves, intercede when they are rebellious, and to love in the face of hate. We can honor them because their God had compassion on us.
To stand with Israel this way will be a steep learning curve—a rollercoaster of faith. But our Lord promises: “The one who endures to the end will be saved.”
“Who is a God like you, who pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellion of the remnant of His possession? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in unchanging love. He will again have compassion on us…You will give truth to Jacob and unchanging love to Abraham, which You swore to our forefathers from the days of old” (Micah 7:18-20).
May we have ears to hear the Spirit, humility to seek the truth, and endurance to stand in courageous love.
The Plea of the Lamb
Half of the world is hopeful and drunk
while the other half burns to the ground.
Half of the world is hopeful and drunk
while the other half burns to the ground.
Sipping on cocktails and telling the tall tales
while survivors sweep ash off burial mounds.
Deception hangs thick, the shofar blasts sound,
the days of Noah counting us down.
Glasses in hand, raise a toast to the future,
glazing right over the foreboding picture
while dust collects on our leather-bound scriptures.
Labor pains start.
It’s cold in the human heart.
In Judea the hills still echo the pain
of Mary’s soft wails, a lament for the slain.
But in churches her mourning's drown out by our shouts.
"Death is no more! I was lost, now I'm found!"
When a Passover Lamb is hung up on a tree,
blood over the door, I claim it’s for me.
We shout, “He is risen! He is risen indeed!"
Deaf to its meaning: Israel’s redeemed.
And the songs of Zion
all tangled in Babylon's trees.
Holy land polluted with rivers of blood
fresh as a daisy as envy goes crazy.
Your people stumble, always war and infighting,
missed their Messiah, now Your face is hiding.
A blessing, a promise, all the good in the world.
You’ll bring it through them, yet we twist Your words,
"Did God really say? No way, its not true.
Our theology fixed that. See these New Testament moves?"
Golden calf, on our knees,
worshipping our sound beliefs
as Abel’s blood cries,
“How long will you wait, oh Lord?”
Baby in a basket floats strait to the hunter.
Daddy’s dream saves the baby boy destined to suffer
for the red-headed babies ripped from their mother.
Their caskets float past us while we sit and wonder
which store has the best price on the candy and baskets,
the trinkets we’ll hide to keep ourselves distracted
from the blessing we stole, from the heel we have grabbed,
plant our cross on the hill and claim the side that was jabbed.
We wave palms high and preach, “God died for you.”
Erasing his crime: King of the Jew.
This world goes blind as Rachel's children are dying.
They fade into dust, yet we never stop crying,
"We love you, Lord Jesus!”
Forgotten, the least of these.
So we spurn ‘em, burn ‘em, don’t return ‘em.
Use ‘em, defuse ‘em, execute ‘em.
Back ‘em, sack ‘em, counter-attack ‘em.
Leave ‘em, chide ‘em, evangelize ‘em.
Complain ‘em, frame ‘em, downplay ‘em.
Hate ‘em, grate ‘em, devastate ‘em.
Wreck ‘em, deck ‘em, what-the-heck ‘em.
They’re still God's chosen ones,
still wrestlin’ with the worst of us.
So the Nile runs red,
and Judah’s scepter’s still true.
The stars in the heavens
know he loves you.
His love rests on you, dears,
his love rests on you.
Word in the heavens
is he still loves you.
Yeah, Jacob’s in trouble,
'cause we beat him up.
Sold him for rank,
our silence casting his lot
while they ransack and pillage,
terrorize, rape.
Us emotionless watching, stoic our face.
Lips rehearse empty prayers and hollow we stand,
bloodguilt of our brothers stains our holy hands.
The Son reigns on high
at the right hand,
but the bowls grow heavy
as blood soaks the land.
“Worthy is the Lamb,
at dawn you must ride!
Mount the great clouds
and rescue your bride!”
Still he pleads with the Father
to remember his land,
remember the people he numbers like sand:
"Remember your promise to Abraham,
remember Egypt, and your outstretched hand.
Don’t pour out your wrath yet.
Wait one more generation.
Just a little more time,
for the sake of the nations.
The hatred will grow, yes,
but so will the love.
So the whole world will know
the God of Jacob.
Forgive them all,
great God of Jacob.”
“Through us and the church, infinite wrong was done...We accuse ourselves for not standing to our beliefs more courageously, for not praying more faithfully, for not believing more joyously, and for not loving more completely.”