The Story Chapter 18

A few weeks ago we talked about Israel's destruction by Assyria. Judah lasted another few generations, but ultimately did not learn their lesson and God allowed them to be taken into captivity by Babylon. Babylon's strategy was different than Assyria's and was even smarter. They indoctrinated the best and smartest people from these conquered nations and made them loyal to Babylon. 

As we read this week’s chapter we see this on the very first page.  What is actually happening here is clash of worldviews; a cultural war.  This is important to see because in so many ways we are engaged in the same war. The secular worldview and the Christian worldview are in many ways at odds with each other. Clearly, the surface details are different, but the goals and tactics are eerily similar.

It says on page 249 that Babylonian officials took the Jewish captives and taught them the language and literature of Babylon and that they were given Babylonian food to eat. They basically give the best of the best a free ride to Babylon University and in the course of time hope to win their hearts over as well. 

Hi, I'm cool.

The strategy here may not jump out at you, but realize what they are actually doing is waging this war of worldviews on three different battlefronts.

1.  Mental front. They knew if they could get them to stop thinking and talking like Israelites then they would more likely be loyal to Babylon.  So they re-taught them to speak. Renamed things and changed the way they thought and spoke about things. There is an identical strategy in the culture war we face. There has been a mass effort to change language and thinking towards most of life, especially things that are unacceptable in the Christian worldview. Sins are not sins, they are character flaws, conditions, identify quarks or something else that lessons the negative feel of the particular thing.  Or, in some cases where there is no way to rename a thing to make it sound better, culture just says there is nothing wrong with that thing at all. Disobedience to God's word becomes a matter of free choice and saying anything negative towards that "thing" is hateful, closed minded, intolerant, old fashioned, archaic, stifling, etc.

2.  Cultural front. They replaced Israel's history and Israel's story with Babylon's history and stories. This is part of reshaping identify and worldview. A culture's story is one of the most unifying things and results in loyalty. So Babylon said, "Here, instead of reading those old fables and fairy tales why don't you read what really happened in history. Noah? No, it was Gilgamesh. Yahweh created the world? No. Apsu and Mummu-Tiamet merged and begot all that is." and so on.  The same strategy is in play today where secular culture seeks to replace the biblical history and the story of God's people with its own history. It is common to pick up on a condescending tone as this happens; “You believe in those Bible stories? Awww, that’s cute…but dumb. Let me tell you what really is the case.”

3.  Lastly this was a moral battle. Giving them food from the king's table doesn't sound horrible. In fact it seems nice. Giving captives food from the king's table sounds very generous. That's a way of saying they were given distinctly Babylonian foods. As Jews they had the Law of Moses that forbid eating certain things. The issue there wasn't that certain foods are somehow evil or wrong. That was just one of the ways God told Israel to set themselves apart. Having these dietary requirements was simply one of the things that set Israel apart as God's covenant people. Nonetheless, at this time that was what God wanted from them. Now the Babylonians set these foods in front of them and say, "come on, these foods are better. If you eat then you will be better and stronger and accepted." The choice in front of them was do I keep basing my view of what's right and wrong on God's word, or on what everyone around me is doing? Do I really need to explain how that mentality is till active today?

That is the way Babylon replaced other worldviews with their own, and it is the way the world tries to replace the biblical worldview with its own. The typical Christian approach to this worldview war is to build a safe bubble of Christianity to live in. Some people want to remove themselves from the big bad scary world so that there is no risk of my worldview being challenged or being tainted by the world. However, this is not the story of how some Hebrews built a bubble around themselves. This is the story of how some Hebrews learned to live in culture in a way that was faithful to God and drew people to him.

4 Hebrews: Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah are taken to Babylon because they were exceptional people.

I think Jesus followers should be experts in various fields. Why is it such a rarity and such a huge story when someone who rises to the top of a particular group happens to be a devoted Christian (*cough* Tebow *cough*)? Jon Jones is a great example. He is literally the best of the best in a very unexpected field, cage fighting, and he is a genuine follower of Jesus. That’s wonderful, but why is it so rare and shocking? Shouldn’t followers of Jesus be among the best of the best in every field? After all, we are representing Jesus to the world and we often make Jesus look lazy.

One of the edge of your seat/white knuckle/don’t get up to go to the bathroom until this scene is over parts of this when Nebuchadnezzar starts thinking he’s better than Bieber and has a giant statue of himself made. After ordering everyone to worship the statue he finds out Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are not singing along. One of the most amazing parts of this story in my opinion is the response the 3 Hebrews gave to King Neby when he says, “sing to my statue or die in my furnace.” They say “O King Nebuchadnezzar, we not need to give an answer for ourselves. We know that our God can rescue us from the fire. But even if he doesn’t, you should know we won’t serve your gods or worship your statue.” AMAZING! Here’s my version of that response: “Silly King. Our God can do anything, even the seemingly impossible. He can keep us alive in your fire. But even if he chooses not to, he is still God you are still not.”

How does that great statement of faith affect our lives? How do we apply this? This is made real in our world as we stay faithful in the face of pain, suffering, doubt and confusing situations. Do we have the kind of faith that does not remove God from his throne when things hurt? The 3 Hebrews did not know for sure God was going to rescue them. For all they knew God could’ve chosen not to rescue them, and yet they retained faith that God is good and powerful and worthy of worship. How often does our faith depend on whether or not the genie in the sky has been coming through lately or not? When things are great God is awesome. When things are rough God has forgotten. I want their kind of faith. I want my prayer to be, “God, I know you are able to heal me/rescue me/provide for me/fix this situation, but even if you choose not to you are still a wonderful God worthy of worship.” May we all have this kind of faith that acknowledges that God is caring enough to be aware of every situation we face, that he is powerful enough to change any situation, and that he is also sovereign enough to decide which prayers he answers.