context

Titus Toolbox: An Introduction to Studying Titus

/ Melissa / Leave a comment

Our goal for women’s Bible study is to equip you to enjoy God’s Word and to be transformed by the truth of it. While not the primary source of teaching at Heritage (that would be the pulpit ministry during our Sunday gatherings), Women’s Bible study is a wonderful gift. And we’re thankful for the opportunity to gather and read and discuss and grow in our understanding of God’s Word together.

The number one thing we want you to do with Bible study is value God’s word so that you can submit to it and be transformed by it. The Word of God is a means of grace to His people. Other means of grace (or, how you get grace) are prayer and the Church. So, that’s why we are practicing this with other sisters. Because God graciously uses all of His people to help one another grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Truth, so we can live godly lives. And that is what the book of Titus is all about! Grace and Truth lived out.

TOOLBOX ILLUSTRATION: If we were gathered around my kitchen table instead of here today/tonight, you’d notice that we’re in the middle of a minor renovation, building in a pantry and bookshelf. I’m really thankful for a handy husband who is still eager to learn new skills, especially from his dad (who’s a retired construction superintendent). Bryan’s dad didn’t really teach him the trade as they were going up, but it’s important to Bryan now to say, “Dad, I need to know how to do this. Can you help me?” And it’s fun to watch the two of them teach our 3 boys the different tools and how to use them. They’ve been running around with tape measures measuring everything! So, I brought a toolbox here (visual aid) and it’s filled with tools (or objects that represent those tools) that I’ve found helpful over the years in studying and working to understand God’s Word. Some tools are more helpful in specific types of Scripture, and some are helpful for all of Scripture. And just as in construction, these tools take a little practice.

TOOLS:

  • Bible (Scripture Journal) – The Bible the living, inspired Word of the eternal God. These Scripture journals aren’t necessary, but they are helpful for note taking and highlighting in ways you might not want to mark up your Bible permanently.
  • Workbook – see appendices for different questions you can ask of Scripture. And we’ve tried to be really thoughtful in how we’re asking the questions in our workbooks. Especially for those who maybe haven’t done a lot of Bible studies, we want to give you a framework to come to Scripture with good questions and ask God to help you answer them about the Word He’s given you.
  • PRAYER (object lesson: phone, represents us calling out to God) – John 17 tells us that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth, guiding us as believers into all truth. In Proverbs 2, it tells us that God has storehouses of wisdom that He is ready to pour out on the righteous. And in James 1, He tells us that He loves to give wisdom generously to those who ask. So, always start by asking for wisdom as we approach God’s Word. We tried to model this as we wrote the workbooks this time as well. There are prayers that you can use as launching points at the beginning and end of each week’s lesson.

WORKBOOK QUESTIONS ON PAGES 2-3 (AND MORE TOOLS):

(Q1) What genre is the book of Titus? (What type of literature is the text?)

TOOL: READ AND REREAD (AND/OR LISTEN) – There’s value in reading things over and over again. And in our day and age, we have several solid translations that we can use. The Bible App is really helpful for listening (6.5 minutes to listen to the whole book of Titus).

(A1) As we read through Titus, we notice a few things… it’s a letter. So, we know we’re in the EPISTLES or LETTERS GENRE.

TOOL: ENVELOPE – Now, the original letters were probably written on scrolls, so no actual envelope, but the letters contained the features that would be on our modern envelopes. It includes who wrote the letter, who the letter was to, where it was sent from, and when it was written. Now, some of this is in the letter itself, and some we have to do a little research for.

(Q2) Who wrote the book? (A2) Paul. Now, we’re not going to look too deeply into Paul in today’s lesson because our study next week covers chapter 1:1-4, so Amina will cover Paul’s background next week. But we’re just getting the main ideas here and working on our toolbox.

(Q3) When was it written? Did you read the letter before coming tonight? Good! Did you find a date in the letter to Titus? Me neither!

TOOL: STUDY BIBLE/COMMENTARY 

  • We would recommend the ESV Study Bible or the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible. If you don’t own a study Bible, that’s ok. Because most of this information can be found online for free; if you’re not sure of authors to trust, ask an elder or one of the other teachers here at Heritage for recommendations.
  • Crossway and The Gospel Coalition (TGC) have some really good resources and free courses on their websites to help with this.
  • The Bible Project has free videos on YouTube that cover every book of the Bible (some of their newer videos should be viewed with discernment, but the book overviews are very helpful).

(A3) Short answer: between AD 62-66.

When we compare these resources, it seems likely that this letter was written sometime after Paul’s first imprisonment in Rome (released AD 62; see Acts 28, so most of the events in Acts have taken place, including all 3 missionary journeys). Since Paul wants Titus to join him in Nicopolis by winter, it’s likely that Paul’s either already in Nicopolis or visiting some churches on his way there. And we know Paul was imprisoned in AD66 until he died a martyr under Nero in AD68.

It’s believed Paul wrote Titus in between writing 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy, so there’s a lot of similarities in the Pastoral Epistles. You might want to take your Scripture journal and read thru all 3 letters and see what similarities you can find.

(Q4) Who was Titus written to?

(A4.1) A little self-evident by the title and Titus 1:4, Titus is clearly the immediate recipient.

Not to give away too much about Titus, but we know he was an uncircumcised Greek who trusted Jesus Christ as His Savior. The fact that he was uncircumcised will be valid as he refutes the Jewish circumcision party at the end of chapter 1.

Titus traveled with Paul on several of his missions, and clearly had some administrative gifting, or he would not have been tasked with the contents of this letter.

(A4.2) Titus is written in a way that is calling out certain activities and calling for other activities, so it’s also written to the churches Titus is pastoring. It was important for these young churches to know that Titus wasn’t just taking this task upon himself of his own volition (like some of the teachers in his day). But rather, God thru Paul was authorizing Titus to set up elders in the network of house churches. Where? on the isle of Crete (1:5). Those elders were to have authority over the churches. Just as our elders do today. It was the way God designed the Church to function.

(A4.3) As part of the Church, this letter is also for us today. But, before we get to US-NOW, we need to first understand what was going on with THEM-THEN.

TOOL: CONTEXT (object lesson: umbrella, since we have several tools or resources we can use under this tool of CONTEXT)

TOOL: WHERE IN THE BIBLE? You might look and see if the word “Crete” or “Cretan” is used anywhere else in Scripture.

  • BIBLE INDEX (often at the back of your Bible)
  • Strong’s Concordance (a big book that lists every word in the Bible and groups them together for every time they’re used in their original language)
  • BlueLetterBible.org or BibleHub.com (both of these are free websites and have their own apps now).

WHAT WE FOUND OUT ABOUT CRETE: So, we search Crete, and we see it mentioned in Titus, of course. And we believe Paul actually spent some time in Crete, even though it’s not mentioned in his missionary journeys because Titus tells us there’s an unfinished task that he needs to do.

  • Acts 27 multiple times, so we read that story. Paul is on his way to Rome to be imprisoned, stops on the island of Crete, and ends up being shipwrecked on the nearby island of Malta.
  • Acts 2. Jews from Crete are mentioned among those at Pentecost (AD33, after Christ had died, risen, and ascended to heaven, and the disciples were gathered in Jerusalem, waiting). Those at Pentecost witness the filling of the Holy Spirit and the disciples speaking in tongues. They understand the gospel in their own language, repent and are baptized, and begin devoting themselves to the apostle’s teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer. This is the beginning of the Church! And they must have taken the gospel back to Crete and started a network of house churches.

But then we see even further back—is Crete mentioned in the OT!? Let’s see.

  • Deuteronomy 2:23, “… the Caphtorites from Crete invaded and destroyed the Avvites, who had lived in villages in the area of Gaza” (AMP).(This is when Israel is wandering around the wilderness and about to enter Canaan, the Promised Land. And the LORD uses various people groups to wipe out Canaanites to give the land to the Israelites! These original people of Crete (or Caphtor) are actually the ancestors of the Philistines (“the people from the sea”). [Note: Archaeologists have recently linked DNA from a Philistine tomb to DNA on the island of Crete!]

This little island wasn’t called Crete until about the 15th c. BC. Before that, it’s actually called Caphtor! And that’s confirmed by the map during the Patriarchs time in the back of my study Bible: Crete (Caphtor). So, then we have to search for Caphtor and see if that opens up anything else.

  • Genesis 10:14 mentions Caphtorites or Caphtorim—a descendant of Ham (son of Noah). So that’s around or before the 25th c. BC.
  • Caphtor pops up again in Amos, Jeremiah, Chronicles.

And we don’t want to go down any rabbit holes, but it’s good to do a general overview and then ask, “Does this help me understand the text I’m studying?” Some will, some won’t. Keep the bits that INFORM your TEXT. The rest may come in handy as you study something else though. 😉

What we conclude is that God is sovereign (and has been since before Creation) over every human, every people group, every island and continent, including those on the isle of Caphtor (or Crete)!

  • Acts 17:26, “From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands.”

TOOL: Maps – The history of the world is marked by lines on maps, and depending on the time period you’re studying, those lines might be different than they are today.

  • p. 3 Workbook (Find Crete).
  • Most Bibles have a few maps in the front or back, especially a good study Bible.
  • Online maps
  • Google Earth or other satellite images or pictures online to see what it looks like today.

Crete is an island in the Mediterranean Sea—about the same size as Long Island, NY. It has a huge mountain running from E to W and is rich in agriculture, art history, beaches and quarries. It’s gorgeous! This particular island was known for having many towns, being a central port; it was very wealthy, and was conquered multiple times over the years. How do we know that?

TOOL: History Books – not every part of Scripture gives us specific details about who and where and when, BUT when it does, we must assume it to be important—at least important enough for God to include it in His preserved Word for us. So, if history and places are important to God, we should work to make them important to us. Some of you are really good with history. This does not come naturally for me, so I have to really work at remembering what happened when and where and how it all connects (usually using large pieces of paper to draw out timelines), but it is worth the work.

  • Bible Timelines
  • History books written from a biblical worldview
    • Story of the World—available at the library or Hoopla!
    • Mystery of History
  • Solid secular history books (I really like the DK publishers for history and science—just edit the parts about evolution, obviously).

CONTEXT: Being Greek, Titus would have known the histories and mythologies that centered around this island. But being a Christian, his whole life and understanding of how the world works had been totally transformed by the truth of God!

APPLICATION: The book of Titus is here to help us understand and experience the total transformation of the gospel in our own lives, even as we fight our own cultural myths and superstitions! Many of us adapt how we act based on cultural myths or  superstitions. (E.g., “Step on a crack, and… do you avoid stepping on cracks because of this little rhyme? And there are far more serious myths out there, and we can be tempted to change our behavior because of them.)

Note: I was an English major in college, and I am really glad I took Classical Medieval Literature with Dr. Karen Silvester in college—and that I kept my notes for over 20 years! 😉

WHAT WE FOUND OUT ABOUT CRETE’S HISTORY/MYTHOLOGY (TIMELINE):

  • 7000 BC (if the world’s that old), Recent archaeological discoveries have dated the inhabitants of Crete as one of the most ancient civilizations.
  • 2700BC, the Minoans (under King Minos), founded the first European civilization on Crete (Caphtor). They were the head civilization in the Mediterranean (or Aegean) region.
    • They built elaborate palaces, with beautiful fresco murals; each palace had its own port, and the greatest palace Knossos has been discovered, restored and partially rebuilt as a tourist attraction that’s still around today!
    • Minoans were known for their cruelty. The Minoans, like many ancient cultures, viewed bulls as sacred. Legend of Minotaur (Minos and taurus, half-man/half-bull). The Minotaur was kept in an elaborate labyrinth under the palace, and it was a brutal beast that ate children. Talk about rule by fear! Minos didn’t want to sacrifice his own country’s children, so he ordered that the king of Athens send 7 boys and 7 girls to be sacrificed to it every year! And allegedly, King Aegeus complied, putting names of all the children into a bowl to be drawn each year. UNTIL his son Theseus found out when he turned 18! His name had been kept out of the drawing all this time, and he decided to volunteer to go to Crete and slay the Minotaur, which he did with the help of King Minos’s daughter (a tragic, love at first sight story). These are the kind of brutal tales that Titus would have grown up hearing. And the people on the island of Crete would have known them too.
  • 1600BC, the Mycenaeans (from modern day Greece) conquered the Minoans and took over the island and the title of “head civilization.”
    • After a nearby volcanic eruption sent ash into the area and destroyed the crops on Crete, many of the Minoans were weakened, died of starvation, or disappeared (likely fleeing to the mainland).
  • 1200 BC, Mycenaean’s fall to Troy (in modern Turkey)
    • Battle recounted in Homer’s Iliad.
    • Trojan horse story, the soldiers hidden inside a horse as a gift to Troy – the Mycenaeans from Crete are the ones who did that (according to the myth).
  • 800 BC, Crete ruled by various Greek city-states (lots of civil wars, to say the least).
    • New alphabet developed.
    • Homer (blind Greek poet) lived and wrote down the stories of the Greek gods, including a description of Crete in The Odyssey, Book XIX: “There is a country, Crete, in the midst of the wine-dark sea, a fair land and a rich, begirt with water. The people there are many, innumerable indeed, and they have ninety cities. Their speech is mixed; one language joins another. Here are Achaeans, here brave native Cretans, here Cydonians, crested Dorians, and noble Pelasgians. Of all their towns the capital is Cnosus [Knossos], where Minos [legendary king of Crete, during whose rule the labyrinth was built] became king when nine years old—Minos, the friend of mighty Zeus….” Continues to talk of the “strong wind,” “a harbor hard to win,” and elaborate feasts and clothing.
  • 700-501 BC (exact dates unknown), Epimenides
    • Poet/prophet who lived at Knossos
    • Quoted by Paul in Titus 1:12, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” [The original poem was to reprimand Crete for making a burial tomb for Zeus and to promote Zeus’ immortality:

“They fashioned a tomb for thee, O holy and high one
The Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies!
But thou art not dead: thou livest and abidest forever,
For in thee we live and move and have our being.” — Epimenides, Cretica ]

  • 500-400 BC, Jews arrived in Crete from Egypt and Palestine
    • Maccabean Revolt
    • End of OT, before and during the 400 years of silence before Jesus comes to Earth.
    • They were religiously Jewish, but culturally, many or most of them “hellenized”, which means they acted like the Greeks.
  • 200-118 BC, The Ancient Greek historian Polybius in his Histories wrote, “Now it would be impossible to find, except in some rare instances, personal conduct more treacherous or a public policy more unjust than in Crete.”
  • 106-43BC, Roman statesman Cicero (around the time of Julius Caesar, Marc Antony, and Pompey) wrote in his Republic, “How many… have thought it exceedingly pious and agreeable to the gods to sacrifice men. Besides these religious discrepancies, the rules of life are so contradictory that the Cretans and Aetolians regard robbery as honorable.”
  • 69 BC, Crete came under Roman rule in 69BC.
  • AD: The year of our Lord – Jesus’s coming is the lynchpin between BC and AD. When Jesus comes, everything changes!
  • AD 33, Jews from Crete at Pentecost in Jerusalem
  • AD 54-65, Nero was the Roman ruler
  • AD 62-66 Letter to Titus written
  • Lots of other battles and victories over Crete; but today, Crete is part of Greece.

MYTHOLOGY: The word “myth” (or “mythos” in Greek) simply means “story.”

Mythologies are groups of stories that different people groups collect and pass down as they try to make sense of the world. Every culture has them—and they almost all involve a creation narrative, a supreme god (or ruler over all), and the meaning of life (Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here?) And a lot of them have warriors fighting over mankind, including slaying snakes, dragons, and demons—or the warriors are the serpent gods. So many of the mythologies have underpinnings of the true story, but they miss it by so far! The great deceiver continues to twist the stories of creation and authority and purpose.

It’s important for us to know what the common lies are so we can combat them with the truth, as Titus did by the grace and power of the one true God—the one true God who created the universe and man, who is sovereign over all, and by His life and death and resurrection, He gives meaning to all of our lives! (And slays the Great Dragon, Satan, to rescue His beloved—us!)

  • In Greek mythology, chaos produced the first being—Gaia (Earth).
  • Cronos (son of Gaia) fathered Zeus, presumably on the island of Crete.
  • Zeus seduced MANY women and fathered COUNTLESS children, including Apollo, Artemis, Athena, Perseus (who killed Medusa) and Hercules. Are all these names coming back to you?
  • Zeus was the Greek’s supreme ruler—the Father of the gods. He was thought to be generous, but also known to be a seducer and liar. And the Cretans took their cues from this god.
  • Apparently when two of the goddesses fought about who was the most beautiful, they asked a Cretan to judge and he chose one; the other goddess called him a liar and cursed all Cretans to never be able to tell the truth again.
  • Remember, these are MYTHS because they didn’t know the truth of Jesus yet!

The term “Cretan” is actually still used today as a derogatory term! I actually laughed out loud when I heard the word “Cretan” used as a joke between Randall and Mike Wazowski (the one-eyed monster in the Monsters Inc. cartoon—a cuter version of the Cyclops, perhaps?)!

Randall: ‘Wazowski! Where is it you little one-eyed cretin?’
Mike: ‘Okay, first of all it’s “Cretan”, if you’re going to threaten me, do it properly.’

(Q5) “What is the central theme of the book?”

TOOLS: KEY WORDS (object lesson: COLORED PENCILS)

As you read the book again and again, asking the Spirit for wisdom and insight, certain words or themes may stand out to you. Colored pencils can help illuminate these repeated words and ideas as key truths to study more in depth or find connections to one another. So, choose a color for each word or idea and try to be consistent with that color throughout the whole book.

(A5) LOTS OF KEY WORDS:

  • Truth: This was a big deal, in contrast to the lies of Zeus and other teachers in Crete.
  • Authority: Paul and Titus needed to establish the authority of Jesus Christ as God Himself, and consequently the authority of His Word as the true and living Word of God, as well as the authority of His apostles and elders to the Church.
  • Grace
  • Godliness (or good works)
  • Teaching
  • Jesus as God and Savior
  • Hope

CONNECT CONTEXT AND THE GOSPEL: In their context, they would have been raised looking at the gods determining their fates with no benevolence. It was hopeless! But the gospel gives hope from the One true God who elects us to hope in a beautiful eternity with Him. Their gods were full of wrath at anyone who didn’t please them; there was no grace in Zeus, for sure! His generosity was only placating the people for his own lusts. But our God, though full of wrath towards sin, is also full of grace and uses His grace to save us and sanctify us, making us His very own people (2:14) out of His great kindness and love for us (3:4-5).

(A5) As the Women’s Bible Study Teaching Team studied Titus, various themes emerged. But, as you can tell by the title, we landed on Living the Truth, with a subtitle of “Belief and Behavior that Adorn the Gospel.”

OVERVIEW OF TITUS (see Table of Contents, page 1)

Chapter 1: Paul writes in the first few verses, which you’ll study for next week, that God’s purpose in making him an apostle was to further the faith of God’s elect—all those chosen by God from before the foundation of the world to be His special children—and to further their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness. How we live matters—and what we believe matters. But it starts with knowing the Truth, which can only come from the one True and Living God who cannot lie. Then, as we grow in knowing the Truth, that truth transforms our hearts and lives from the inside out. Faith and Truth lead to godly living.

As we continue, we’ll see Titus’s task to establish elders in the network of churches in every town in Crete. This is where we need to know and live the truth in regard to our leadership here at Heritage. God has graciously provided elders who are fit for godliness and fit for managing God’s household, as they walk worthy of the gospel—not perfectly, but  beautifully, in their homes and in our community. We’ll see a contrast between godly leaders and those who are self-professed leaders who stir up strife and division and are “insubordinate” and “unfit for any good works.” Ouch! We’ll have to really dig into the truth of God’s word and fight the lies of the cultural myths that surround us today—just as the Greeks and Jews on Crete had to fight the myths of their own days. We’ll compare these two groups in what they teach, how they use their tongues, what their tempers are like, and where their trust lies; and I think we’ll find that godly submission is actually a beautiful place to live.

Chapter 2: Value of Teaching Godliness to every age and stage, male and female, bond and free. As we value God’s Word and teach it to one another, it becomes more and more beautiful and valuable to us! And it’s all based on the beauty of the gospel of grace and glory.

Chapter 3: We’ll see the value of living the truth in good works and in devotion to God and God’s people among the world. Are we stressed out by our past sins and failures? Or present distractions and divisions? Or are we stressing God’s Kindness thru Gentle Reminders, Gospel Foundations, and Good Works for God’s Glory? Doctrine (3:1-8) informs duty (3:8-15); what we believe, and how that affects how we live. i.e., the good news produces good works  – in the Church, in our homes, and in the world.

FINAL WEEK: We’ll wrap up with a meal and time of sharing all God has taught us of Living the Truth by Grace. Titus 3:14 says, “Our people must learn to devote themselves to good works!” It’s not a command to “Just do it”—it’s a command to keep learning to do it. And that’s why we’re here—to learn together to devote ourselves to good works, as we devote ourselves to God’s good and kind gospel work in each of our hearts.

PRAYER: Dear God, we thank you for each of these ladies and pray that these tools would be helpful and not overwhelming. Help us as we learn to devote ourselves to good works and further our faith in the knowledge of the truth. We pray that we would be transparent in our small groups, and that you would transform us from the inside out by your grace. In Jesus’s Name, Amen.

Habakkuk 1:12-2:1, My View from the Watchtower

/ Melissa / Leave a comment

Before we get into our main lesson today, I want to take our first few minutes to look at a couple of study tools as we come to God’s Word.

First, let’s talk Context.

Context helps us get a fuller understanding of what’s being said. This might mean we study what’s going on during this time period. But it also includes literary context, which is the passage before and after your text. Habakkuk is such a short book that it can actually really help us to read the whole text each week…maybe even several times. If you have a Bible app, consider listening to it while you’re running errands or washing dishes. Soak in the text. The more you read it, the more connections you are likely to see.

How did the book start? With a prayer… Habakkuk receives this heavy burden from the LORD and rightly brings this burden back to the LORD. Habakkuk sees and questions, “God, do you see what I see?!”

Then, God assures him that He’s seeing it all and tells Habakkuk to look and watch because He’s about to do something that is unbelievable!

Now it’s Habakkuk’s turn to talk. And, just as we saw in that first passage, in today’s text, we’ll see Habakkuk continuing to carry this burden back to the Lord for as long as it takes to see God bring about justice.

What comes next? God answers again. The wicked will receive woes, and God will get the glory. And then the last chapter is a song of remembrance of God’s past deliverance and Habakkuk’s determination to sing praise to God no matter what. So that helps us remember in our text today that God will answer His people’s prayers. And God will execute perfect justice. And it helps our theme of waiting and watching for God to work to become a strong emphasis.

The next tool in our toolbox is Parallelism.

Did anyone find it hard to figure out who was who in this passage? We have to remember that we’re looking at Hebrew poetry. And Hebrew poetry is not about rhyming like our standard English poems. It’s not even about cadence or number of syllables. It’s more about parallel ideas that either compare and contrast or repeat and elaborate upon each other. So, let’s look at Habakkuk 1:12-13 in the ESV and NIV for just a minute to see if we can learn anything new by using this tool.

I tend to go with the oldest date (if we know that), and the fact that the oldest manuscripts also reflect Hebrew parallelism seems to confirm this interpretation.

Lines 3 and 4 (v. 13) follow the same pattern of parallelism as Lines 1 and 2 (v. 12).  Another reason I don’t think Habakkuk is assuming he won’t die or can’t die.

Let’s say you’re not convinced. Is it okay to translate this we? Even if Habakkuk IS saying “We will not die,” He’s still basing this belief on the covenant nature of God that we’ll talk about in a minute. I don’t think he’s saying that he will never die physically, because he knows death has been a part of humanity since the curse; it’s appointed to every man and woman to die once. And he’s seen what happens when evil nations bring other nations into exile. People do die. But it may be that he’s confident that even unto death, he will live with God forever because our souls never die.

“My View from the Watch Tower”

Have you ever been in the middle of a really hard conversation and the phone cuts out? Maybe it’s an argument with your husband or a friend. Maybe you’ve been waiting all week for a response to a job interview—did you get it or not? I have two examples that come to mind… the first was when my twin sister was having her third child. So, we knew she was going into labor, we’re excited that this baby is coming, and then about 12 hours in, we get the dreaded phone call: ” Baby’s in distress, we’re going in for emergency c-section! [Click.]” And there’s nothing you can do. So, you pray and you wait and you watch the phone because you know that they’ll call you back as soon as they can, but there’s just not an answer. Then we got a second phone call: “The baby’s okay. [Silence.]” “And Michelle?” “We don’t know yet. [Click.]” And we wait again. And you don’t know if the answer will be positive or not. The other example was my brother this January, my dad called me and said, “I’m taking Jordan to the ER because we think he had a stroke.” And he did. And it was pretty serious. And I remember giving Callan a bath that night and just kneeling by the tub, crying out to God, “God, it hasn’t even been 6 months since mom died… please don’t take my brother too!” And you fast and pray and wait. And wait.

And that’s the kind of feeling we drop into with Habakkuk. He is reeling with a pit in his stomach and holding his breath, and he cries out to God. (And, yes, we praise God that both my siblings are alive and well today, and God used those things in their lives to grow their faith in the LORD, just as He did with Habakkuk.)

The poetry of this section is more of a personal lament than a complaint. We see the personal nature as he refers to God as “my God” and “my Holy One.” Then, there’s the typical lament pattern: there’s a statement of faith, followed by an extended question, then another statement of faith (A-B-A). He also seems to be elaborating on his first lament in verses 2-4, even using many of the same words.

Don’t we do this? We pray a quick prayer and then the answer seems to be confusing, so we pray in a longer way? What attitude do we do this with? Is Habakkuk questioning God in a disapproving manner? I’d argue that Habakkuk comes to God in an attitude of confidence in God’s character and promises. And we can follow this pattern as we bring our laments to the Lord too.

Habakkuk begins by taking a hard look at the character of God. So, let’s do that with Habakkuk.

I. First and foremost, we need “A Right View of the Rock of the Ages.” (1:12-14)

When God gives us heavy burdens, it is absolutely necessary that we are grounded in who God is. We cannot look at our circumstances and change our view of God. Rather, we look at our God, and let what we know to be true about Him give us perspective about what we’re going through. In fact, isn’t usually the hardest circumstances that actually help us get a bigger view of God and understand Him even better? This is God’s heart throughout Scripture—isn’t it?! To give us a big view of Himself. And He doesn’t change—so this is God’s heart for you and me too—to know us and to make Himself known to us in a big, personal way. Relationship, not just religion. So, what does Habakkuk know about His God?

  1. He knows God is a personal, covenant keeping God (v. 12)
  2. He knows God is eternal (v. 12)
  3. He knows God is all-powerful and good (v. 12)

Let’s look at each of these attributes for a bit. First, God is a personal, covenant keeping God.

One of the first covenants we have is the covenant between the LORD and Abram (Abraham). In Genesis 12, God called Abram out of his home country (Ur of the Chaldeas—ironically, the same people group that are attacking his descendants now) and God promised to make Abram a great nation and through him bless all the families of the earth. Fast forward over two decades, and Abram is still waiting for a single son, let alone a great nation! And this is where the covenant comes in. In Genesis 15, The LORD promises again to give Abram a son and make his offspring as numerous as the stars in heaven! “And he [Abram] believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness” (15:6).

Then God did something as a sign of the covenant He was making with Abram. He had Abram bring a bunch of animals and cut them in half and lay them out. Then Abram fell into a deep sleep, and the LORD said to him, “Know for certain” that I will do what I said I would do (15:13). Then Abram saw “a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces” (15:17). This was a special ceremony—the smoke and fire were symbolic of the LORD Himself, and the cutting in half of the animals was saying in essence, “If I, the LORD, do not keep my end of the covenant, may I be cut in two just like these animals.” But we know that God always keeps His promises! God Himself cannot die! He is eternal! And He’s serious about keeping His word forever!

Habakkuk is grounding his prayers in his relationship with God. In fact, every prayer of Habakkuk begins with the word LORD in all caps (see 1:2; 2:12; 3:2). This is God’s covenant name, YHWH, revealed to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. All of our relationships with God are grounded in this covenant history—in this covenant name—and Habakkuk highlights this first.

TRANSITION. The phrase “from everlasting” can point to both God’s eternality, but even more frequently, it implies a specific act of deliverance in Israel’s history. So once again, it points us to the covenant keeping nature of God—the Rock of ages—”our help in ages past,” “our hope for years to come.”

The covenants of God are really important to understand as we look at OT prophecy. We don’t have time to dive into all of it, but I would recommend two books: 1. Christ from Beginning to End by Stephen Wellum and our pastor Trent Hunter, which points to Jesus in every book of the Bible! It’s fantastic if you’ve never seen that before; and 2. Covenants Made Simple by Jonty Rhodes, which is an easy-to-understand introduction to the covenants (this is a really excellent read and very helpful).

TRANSITION: So, Habakkuk knows God is a personal, covenant keeping God. Next, Habakkuk knows that God is eternal—completely sovereign from eternity past thru eternity future. He has no beginning and no end. And His eternality is part of what makes Him supreme. We cannot comprehend this, but we must have this faith, as Habakkuk did and base our laments on it.

God is unchanging. I love that Habakkuk calls God “my Rock.” Is God your Rock today? If not, He can be…when we fix our eyes on Him.

Deuteronomy 31 is the passing of the torch from Moses to Joshua. Moses is 120 years old and about to die. He reads the Law to the people and he writes it all down (which we know as the Pentateuch, or first five books of the OT), then God tells Moses, “I will surely hide My face in that day because of all the evil that they have done, because they have turned to other gods” (31:18). Then God commands Moses to write a song and sing it to the people. And we find that song, the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32. Let’s read v.3-4, and then if you haven’t done this yet, I’d make a little note to read through all of Deut. 32 and see what similarities you see and how often God is referred to as The Rock.

“3 For I will proclaim the name of the Lord;
    ascribe greatness to our God!

4 “The Rock, his work is perfect,
    for all his ways are justice.
A God of faithfulness and without iniquity,
    just and upright is he.

The song goes on to talk of God leading the people to the Promised Land, but how they grew discontent and “forsook [the] God who made [them]; [they] scoffed at the Rock of [their] salvation. 16 They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods [idols]; …  18  were unmindful of the Rock that bore you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth.”  And it goes on about their idolatry against their Rock.

I read this to remind us that what Habakkuk is seeing is not new. This is not the first time Israel rebelled. In fact, it’s somewhat of a broken record by this point. Verse 13 reflects Habakkuk’s wrestling with what He believes to be true about God with His circumstances.

TRANSITION: Habakkuk knows the Scriptures, and more importantly, He knows God. A. He knows God is a personal, covenant keeping God; B. He knows God is eternal; and C. He knows God is all-powerful and good. God will execute perfect, right justice.

Let’s read verse 13: “You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do You idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?”

Habakkuk knows God is pure and will not tolerate evil, because that’s part of His covenant promises, and yet the reality of Habakkuk’s surroundings and his theological belief do not seem to line up for him. He’s like, “I see all this evil all around me. How is God letting this go unnoticed? He sees everything, right? He’s all knowing, right? All powerful? I just don’t get it, God!”

We’ve all been there—or if we haven’t, we will be at some point. I get Habakkuk’s paradox here! I know I’m only in my 40s, but the older I get, the more wickedness and brokenness and frailty I see in this world. And no matter how hard we try to guard ourselves from it, it’s simply unavoidable. We live in a fallen world, and we know that man apart from God is NOT essentially good—but rather, deceitful and desperately wicked. We are messed up! We need Jesus!

When Habakkuk says that God has “purer eyes than to see evil,” does he mean that God is not omniscient? No. God sees all and knows all, and yet He cannot and does not dwell on the evil. Fast forward hundreds of years to Jesus on the cross—what did God do? He looked away from His Son. Jesus was forsaken for us—because Jesus took all of our sin upon Himself.

So, we, like Habakkuk, have a choice—we can either let ourselves become overwhelmed by our circumstances and the wickedness of this world, and the wickedness of our own hearts and get depressed and doubt and even turn from God, like so many of the Israelites did! We can reject God and His covenant promise, and pursue idols and all forms of evil to fill up our own desires and pleasures, to try to fill the void and distract ourselves from our fears, OR we can run to God in prayer and faith and trust that God is doing something bigger and deeper and more eternally significant than we are able to see, even through these hard and horrible things. He is 100% sovereign over every aspect of His creation. And He is good!

We don’t get to decide what “good” means. We want to think that “good” is subjective to what we like or want, but God defined goodness in Himself! Whatever He does is good, and we must align our hearts with His sovereign goodness.

We will go through hard things, but hard is not the same as bad. When we go through hard things, we must remember that it is absolutely God who caused it! Is that hard to think about? To wrap our minds around? Sure. But v. 12 says that the LORD  “appointed” and “ordained” the Chaldeans for a purpose—“to execute judgment” and “to punish”—and the judgment and punishment was on the people of God in order to lovingly draw them back to God! The word “punish” here has the idea of doing what is right or just to correct AND to redeem!

Now we come to v.14: “You make mankind like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler.” “You” refers back to the LORD! God is the one removing their kings and scattering them into foreign nations! We see this language throughout the prophets, God causing affliction through armies—of men or of locusts, through weather, drought, famine, and then saying, “Yet you did not return to me!” In Romans 1, it is God who gives those who refuse to repent over to the lusts of their hearts and a debased mind.

God gives His people so many warnings, including this one in Deuteronomy 29:

“18 Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from the Lord our God to go and serve the gods of those nations. Beware lest there be among you a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit, 19 one who, when he hears the words of this sworn covenant, blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall be safe, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart.’ This will lead to the sweeping away of moist and dry alike.”

We as a nation are consumed with the idea of safety—physical, emotional, all of it. But we’re also consumed with stubbornly holding to what I want to believe is true—whether it is or not—and attempting to silence anyone who dares disagree with me. We are not so far off from the wickedness of the Israelites, are we? The result of this stubbornness: the LORD overthrew them because they abandoned the covenant, uprooted them, and cast them out…and ultimately, blotted out their names from under heaven! This is serious! Do we think we can walk in our sin and still inherit the kingdom?!

If you are walking around saying, “I’m okay,” but your heart is stubbornly set against God and His Word,   I beg you to repent of your sin and walk humbly with God! If you refuse to repent, you will find yourself among the religious crowd in Matthew 7 crying, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then Jesus answers, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” Salvation was never about our works! Apart from God, there is ZERO goodness in any of us!

Habakkuk was pleading with God because he saw God as being silent when the wicked were swallowing up Israel—he called Judah “the man more righteous than they” (referring to the Babylonians). But are they? Was Judah “more righteous” than Babylon? No! The Northern Kingdom had already been sent into exile, and now Judah was following in her footsteps! Judah had sinned every bit as wickedly as Israel AND Babylon. Why? Because they rejected God, which made them traitors and enemies of God!

This is a distorted thought of comparison: “we’re more righteous than they are!” But no, God tells us it’s foolish to compare ourselves among ourselves. Rather, we must compare ourselves to God—and when we do that, He corrects our thinking by humbling us and drawing us to repentance and righteous living.

Romans 3 (v. 9-12, 23) tells us that we are all sinners! The Jews aren’t any better off, and neither are we as Gentiles! There is none righteous, no, not one! God sent the Law and the Prophets, and then He sent Jesus—the righteousness of God manifested to us—to rescue and redeem us from our sin! We are not more righteous than anyone, except through faith in Jesus, the truly Righteous One, who loved us and gave Himself for us, taking our sin, and giving us His righteousness in its place.

If you study through the prophets, you will see this theme over and over and over… God’s heart is always FOR His people. He loves us desperately! And will do whatever it takes to bring us to Himself. And that doesn’t always make sense to us as humans. But God’s ways are better than our ways. He does everything for His glory and our good, because He knows what our best good is…to dwell with God Almighty for all eternity! That is good! Because God is good! And we can be confident that God will always keep His covenant promises to preserve His children and destroy His enemies.

Which brings us to our next point regarding God’s (and Habakkuk’s) enemies…

II. A View of the Wicked Netsmen (1:15-17)

We switch from “You” (referring to God) to “he” (referring to the Chaldeans). v. 15 – “He [Babylon] brings all of them [Judah] up with a hook; he drags them out with his net; he gathers them in his dragnet; so he rejoices and is glad.”

    Habakkuk keeps with his fish imagery here and sees the enemy capturing God’s people with hooks and nets—symbols of aggression, but also symbols of divine judgment in their day. And the evil nations were known to use hooks literally to drag their hostages away, treating them like hunted prey rather than human beings. The word used for “net” here in the original language is a wordplay, and in Deut. 7:26 it’s translated “devoted to destruction.” This is seriously awful!

    And then we see this phrase, “he rejoices and is glad.” Do we see this anywhere else in Scripture? Yes! The joining of these two words is throughout Scripture as a call to worship! “Rejoice and be glad!” But here it’s used of the wicked rejoicing in their conquests, not worshiping God! (v.11, “their god is their own might.”)

    v. 16 continues their false worship ceremony: “Therefore he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings [or burns incense] to his dragnet.” This is a very public form of idolatry!

    Why? “For by them he lives in luxury, and his food is rich.” The evil seem to be prospering here! They are very affluent, and they follow a very logical, and yet very wrong, line of thinking. They think, “Well, sure I’m cruel, but it must be okay because it’s making me rich, and if I’m fat and happy, then that’s a sign of the gods’ favor, right?!” “The end justifies the means.” But no, just because someone is rich and powerful in this world, it does not mean that’s because “the gods” or God Himself is blessing him!

    Habakkuk felt this… and he asks God directly (v.17), “Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever?”, echoing the “O LORD, how long?” cry from his first lament (1:2). (Spoiler alert: Will the Babylonians keep doing this forever? No, the woes are coming in the very next chapter! And we’ll look more later at the end of Babylon in a future week.) 😉

    Asaph felt this in Psalm 73… he was so weary because he saw the wicked seemingly prosper and always at ease, increasing in riches. And he wonders, is being pure before the Lord and worshiping God worth it?! Then, he goes into the sanctuary of God and God revealed their end. They will be utterly swept away, but God’s beloved children will be received to glory, to be with God forever!

    We must remember that our sin is every bit as snaring as the enemy’s nets, but Jesus sets our hearts free to wait and to worship. We need to follow Asaph into the sanctuary of God and follow Habakkuk to the top of the watch tower… and look at Habakkuk 2:1 for a minute.

    III. Right Responses from the Watch Tower (2:1)

    We can’t look at verses 1:12-17 without finishing Habakkuk’s thought with 2:1, so let’s read that now, noticing the very personal language Habakkuk uses.

    “I will take my stand at my watchpost and station myself on the tower, and look out to see what He will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint.”

    Notice he doesn’t say “we”—he is in a lonely, isolated situation, with a heavy weight, or burden to bear, but he takes individual, personal resolve to take up the task that God has set before him. He uses words like “I” and “my” 7x in this short statement.

    Habakkuk began his lament with a personal relationship with God and now he ends his lament with a personal resolve to wait for God’s answer in God’s time.

    Hosea 9:8 tells us one of the main purposes of a prophet: “The prophet, along with my God, is the watchman over Ephraim, [“the people of my God”].”(NIV) The watch post position was one of not only looking for the enemy attacks, but also sounding the alarm to the people! This is the job of a prophet—to watch and to warn! And this is what Habakkuk is resolved to do! He loves God and He loves the people of God, so no matter how hard it gets, he’s going to wait for God’s answer and continue to warn the people to turn back to their God.

    We are not prophets, especially in the OT prophet sense of the word. But the crux of the word prophet is a proclaimer. And that we can do! We have this picture of a watch tower—this would be a position on the wall of a fortified city. In Habakkuk’s case, this would have been the watch tower built into the city wall of Jerusalem (before the wall was destroyed and the people taken into exile).

    For us, as women, we are to be keepers of the home—this has that same watch tower / gate keeper imagery. We fix our eyes on Jesus and set the tone for what comes in and out of our four walls. We are called to proclaim truth to one another—particularly to our own children and to women younger than us (as in Titus 2).

    Waiting takes time. We need this message more than ever! We must slow down and be still. We must resolve to look for God in every aspect of life and be ready and willing to warn those in our sphere of influence that Jesus is coming. This definitely includes home, but it might also include other spheres—whether it’s a leadership position at church or outside the home with a job or in your community. Each of us has been positioned by God in a personal watch tower of sorts. And we can and must proclaim God’s truth in these watchtowers God has placed us in. But how do we do this?

    Waiting requires perseverance, humility, and patience in quietness. When we see God for who He is, He gives us the gift of repentance to turn from sin to following our Savior. He gives us faith and other gifts to call others to join us in a life of repentance and faith, keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus! Say with the psalmist, “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made Heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:1-2).

    These last five years have had a lot of laments for our family. We’ve had hard diagnoses, death, difficulty in relationships; I quit a job I loved because it was the right thing to do for our family. Life is full of hard things and various disappointments. Sometimes it seems like life is shadowed by a little black raincloud. BUT GOD! Through every single thing, we have seen God proving Himself over and over and over to be faithful to His covenant, and faithful to us as His covenant children. We have seen God strip away our expectations and lift our eyes to a greater understanding of His goodness and glory. And in those lonely, dark hours, we must follow Habakkuk’s example once again. Fixing our eyes on our coming King Jesus!

    So, when you are hit by a wave of emotion—grief, anger, fear, confusion, doubt—for whatever circumstance God has placed you in, remember God is with you! The God of Habakkuk is our God too! And we can follow Habakkuk’s example—confidently taking our laments to the Rock of Ages, and then confidently fixing our eyes on the God who will answer and rescue.

    Meanwhile, we wait patiently; we wait humbly; and we wait expectantly. So, take your stand and look to see what God will say! God will answer, and God will win! But you’ll have to keep reading for that part.

    Let’s pray. “O LORD, You are our Holy One, our God, our Rock—and we do not always understand Your ways, but we trust Your character. You are our stability and eternal hope. And we thank You for the hard realities that drive us to Your goodness. Keep our eyes fixed on Jesus who “endured” much more “hostility” than we ever have, and yet did so with “joy, so we may not grow weary or fainthearted.” Thank you for the “discipline” you use “for our good, that we may share in Your holiness,” by the mercy of our Savior Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, Amen.”

    Ezra 1-2: The Stirring of the Spirit

    / Melissa / Leave a comment

    Before we dive into the book of Ezra, we need to make a few comments about the timeline of the book. In our English Bibles, it’s found right after Chronicles, in the historical or “writings” section and well before Psalms and the prophets. In fact, if you read the last few verses of 2 Chronicles and the first few verses of Ezra, much of it is identical! But chronologically, while it falls after the Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah was originally one book and falls at the end of the Old Testament. (Ezra may have actually been the author of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah.) Prophets that correspond with Ezra-Nehemiah are Haggai and Zechariah, as mentioned in Ezra 5. Esther and Daniel also fall in this time period, as the kings mentioned overlap, so you may want to skim those books to refresh your memory of the time period.

    As for context, remember that Israel had disobeyed God and had been warned by God (repeatedly) that the punishment would be 70 years of exile if they didn’t repent (see Daniel 9:1-2; Jeremiah 25:11-12; 29:10). As prophesied, Israel was taken into exile by King Nebuchadnezzar (Babylonian empire), then Babylon was conquered by the Medes and Persians. In Isaiah 44:28-45:3, years before the exile, God prophesied through Isaiah that He would go before His people, providing and preparing their path, and calling them by name to return; and He specifically names King Cyrus as the “anointed” one He would use to “shepherd” His people back to Jerusalem! (Cyrus probably wasn’t even born when Isaiah wrote that, and he definitely wasn’t king yet!) Ezra 1 opens with the first year of King Cyrus’ reign in Persia (ca. 538-539 BC) and Nehemiah closes around 433 BC (just before the 400 years of silence between the Old and New Testaments).

    Some key themes in these first two chapters are as follows:

    • God’s Word (God always keeps His Word! Even the king’s proclamation that was proclaimed and written down in official records became part of God’s Word… and the fact that God moved in Cyrus to record his proclamation will be significant later on in the story when a future king looks it up and helps God’s people finish their work!)
    • God’s House (God’s desire has and always will be to dwell with His people! Even the temple articles that had been taken by Nebuchadnezzar were returned, which would be used to restore God’s Place of Worship.)
    • God’s Spirit stirring hearts of men (believing Jews as well as a pagan king) to accomplish His plan of Redemption, Return, and Restoration! (The King of Heaven’s Plans, Power, Presence and Provision are all very evident in these first two chapters!)
    • Two more themes we’ll see later in the book are Repentance and Rebuilding.

    A few more questions to ask as you study:

    • What other themes of repeated words do you see in these first two chapters?
    • What attributes of God do you see in these chapters?
    • How does the list of returnees in chapter 2 fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy in Isaiah 45:3?
    • What parallels can you think of between the Remnant’s return from exile and the exodus out of Egypt? (Note: You may want to compare and contrast details about the tabernacle and temple; feasts and other celebrations; the Law given to Moses and taught by Ezra; etc. throughout the study as time allows.)
    • How do some of the returnees point us to Christ’s work as Prophet, Priest, and King?
    • How is the Spirit stirring in your heart today?
      • Is there anything you need to repent of and return to the Lord?
      • What “freewill offerings” are you able to give to His Kingdom purposes?
    • Do you believe God’s Word is true and God always keeps His promises?
      • How can you grow in confidence of God and His Word this week?
      • How can you grow in adoration of God and His Word this week?

    Conclusion: God was so incredibly gracious to work in individual hearts through the stirring of the Spirit to return to the promised land, contribute to His Kingdom plans, and help rebuild His temple so His people can dwell with Him. And this same God is so incredibly gracious to send us His Spirit to work in our hearts to redeem us through His Son’s work on the cross and to restore us to Himself so we can dwell with Him together forever!

    Next up: Ezra 3-4. If you’re studying along with these posts, take time to pray and ask God for wisdom, understanding, and insight; reread all of Ezra; then read the specific chapters a few times, looking for key words, ideas, connections to Jesus; write down any questions you have & see how God will use His Spirit to help you understand His Word and apply it to your life today. There’s no timeline to this, so take it a step at a time; slow down and soak in the Word.