Today’s passage: Isaiah 29
Helpful thoughts:
- There will be an army ready to conquer Jerusalem, and seemingly out of nowhere, they will fail.
- This may have been fulfilled in Isaiah 37:36-37, or perhaps looking forward to later times.
- There will be worshipers of God in Israel, and it will be God’s doing.
- Religious exercises are pointless when the heart of the worshiper is turned “upside down”.
- God looks at the heart.
- Man tends to make God the one who serves us!
- When Christianity starts to mimic idolatry (i.e. Do this ritual, expect that payback), the exchange has already occurred.
Questions to consider:
- The idea of turning things upside down, is written after the explanation of having words but not being able to read them (Verses 11-12). How does the idea that God exists to give me what I want make it hard for me to understand the Bible when I read it? If the Bible is boring to you and confusing, where might the problem lie?
- Is God confused by our modern day culture? Why does He know more about the way things are than we do? Why would it be wrong to put God in a category with “Ancient gods”?
- If we were the potters and God was the clay, what would He be like? How many versions of god would there be? How important is it to learn who He is and what He is like? Why do we tend to reshape or redefine God?