Mike Blogs

When I was an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Macalester College in the 1970’s I had a colleague who played banjo in a jazz band called ‘The Mouldy Figs’. The band still exists in St. Paul, Minnesota. Not sure where they got the name, but there is a visual parable here in Jeremiah about mouldy figs. God paints vivid word pictures. Jeremiah 24:1. The LORD showed me two baskets of figs placed before the temple of the LORD. This was after King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon

King Lemuel’s Mother has given him sound advice about addictions and lusts, that is, anything that distracts him from the main concerns of God, what we often call the laws and commandments of the Lord. I would emphasize that we have learned from Jeremiah that God gives these laws not because he is a tyrant, but because they are for our own good. Following them leads to a lasting relationship with God as well as an inclusive and supportive society. Thus, we refuse to follow Go

Jeremiah 23:33. When this people or a prophet or a priest asks you, 'What is the burden of the LORD?,' you shall say to them, 'You are the burden. I will cast you off, says the LORD'. I love it! Word play is a rhetorical device that God favors to make his points in surprising and memorable ways. Take the example of God's work with another prophet: "the LORD said to me, ‘Amos, what do you see?’ And I said, ‘A plumb line’. Then the LORD said, ‘See, I am setting a plumb line

I welcome Guest Author for today’s devotional: Samantha Owen. If you are a woman who has spent any amount of time around the church, you will have at one time or another been invited to a women’s conference or Bible study where you will have heard about the “Proverbs 31” woman. (Cue the eye rolls.) She is presented as the ultimate standard of biblical womanhood, the metric by which each woman ought to measure and judge herself– devoted, diligent, family-oriented, and busines

Jeremiah 23:23-24. “Am I a God near by, says the LORD, and not a God far off? Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them? says the LORD. Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the LORD.” Let’s answer these questions in order, then perhaps we can see what God is talking about here. “Am I a God near by?” Yes, God is nearby. However, what do humans mean by 'near'? God is always near to us, but God is not domesticated. God is in the temple, in the synagogue, in th

Teachings that King Solomon attributed to King Lemuel’s mother began by emphasizing the dangers of living a desire-driven life. It is difficult to avoid that in today’s culture with songs, movies, and advertising all pushing the idea of constant and immediate self-satisfaction as the standard of the good life. Buy this, order that, do this, dress for success. If that is not happening, then you are not a happening person; or so they say. “For the wicked boast of the desires of

God has, through the preaching of Jeremiah, established a sustained critique of kings and prophets, a condemnation of authoritarians and charlatans. Now God warns the people themselves about listening to too much TV and reading too many conspiracy theories online. Jeremiah 23:16-17. Thus says the LORD of hosts: Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you; they are deluding you. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD. They keep

Last week we were introduced to someone we did not know; King Lemuel or Chief Lemuel, probably the leader of a clan outside the Israelites, but still one of the children of Abraham, just not a child of the Isaac–Jacob line that leads to the Israelites. King Solomon collected wisdom sayings, mostly his own, but he also added at the end Lemuel’s mother's teachings. Though not in the Hebrew tradition, wisdom is wisdom, and all wisdom is God’s wisdom. Lemuel’s mother’s first tea

You probably remember this line from the movie The Blues Brothers (1980); “We’re on a mission from God.” Jake and Elwood Blues make this claim to justify their aggressive behavior while they carry out their plan to save a Catholic orphanage. Oddly enough, people seem to believe them. Good comedy, bad theology. Don’t believe what people say just because they claim to have a word from God. Often they don’t. Yet, people are quite gullible. The ‘false prophet dodge’ worked when

The glorious story of Esther comprises the book of Esther which, in the Christian arrangement of Bible books, comes at the end of the Historical books (Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah) and at the beginning of the Writings or more poetic books (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs). Therefore, in our series on “Women with a Story to Tell,” it is appropriate to find our next woman with a story to tell in Proverbs. Proverb is the word w

God through Jeremiah has been criticizing the current government of Judah. King Josiah’s sons, and one nephew, one after the other have served themselves, remodeling the capital while misleading the people, enriching themselves through corruption and violence, and playing a losing game of shifting alliances with Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon (reread chapters 21 and 22; especially the central theme in 22:13-17). Now we are ready to read the conclusion of God’s judgment of polit

This is the way that empires work, including sprawling nation states like China, Russia, and the United States. First, they control on their citizenry through the use of census data, the classification of kinds of people which is useful for dividing and manipulating the population, the management of news and information including undermining the free press and overwhelming the media with their own propaganda, and the suppression of dissent including shutting down the venues f

In last week’s lesson, we learned what God expects from national leaders, and it should scare some people. Specifically, God sent a message to Josiah’s sons, beginning with Shallum, aka Jehoahaz. Jehoahaz was enthroned by the people of Judah, but after a couple of months when Pharaoh Neco stopped in Jerusalem on his retreat to Egypt, he captured Jehoahaz and took him along in exile, never to be seen in Judah again. In this week’s lesson, still in Chapter 22, Pharaoh Neco ha

Esther and Mordecai have pulled off the first step of a rescue operation by discovering and removing an obstacle to God’s plans for the remaining children of Israel. Mordecai had conceived a diabolical plan, a final solution to the “Jewish problem.” Of course, the language has similarities to Nazi Germany, and the problem was not a Jewish problem but rather a Gentile problem. Their problem was race hatred aka ethnocentrism. The key person in this ancient story was a governmen

God is in the middle of a long sermon that he is preaching through the prophet Jeremiah. And ‘No’ God doesn’t care if you are out of church by noon. God has a lot to say about the ungodly behavior of the nation of Judah. Moreover, God places the blame for the people’s failures directly on the shoulders of the leaders of the nation. God’s understanding of what leaders should be doing is not the same as the common understanding today. What is God’s sense of the primary duties

The cat is out of the bag. What was hidden has seen the light of day. The king flushes so hot with anger that he goes outside into the garden to cool down a bit. Now he has a real problem; his chief advisor may implicate him in a personal plot to endanger a certain group of people. Further, it turns out that Queen Esther is a member of that group. What can he do? ” The king rose from the feast in wrath and went into the palace garden, but Haman stayed to beg his life from Qu

Jeremiah’s message has been generic in the sense that he seems to address any and all kings who sit on the throne. He does follow up with some current kings and they will appear later in this sermon (next week). This sermon began back in 21:11, but like the wandering preacher that he is, Jeremiah repeats himself as we begin Chapter 22. Jeremiah 22:1-4. Thus says the LORD: Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak there this word, and say: Hear the word of the LORD

Haman is stepping carefully, hoping that what he had planned for Mordecai is not revealed now that the king has honored him. He does not realize that the stakes are much higher than his personal vendetta. Esther continues to slow walk her request until the right moment arrives. ” So the king and Haman went in to feast with Queen Esther. On the second day, as they were drinking wine, the king again said to Esther, ‘What is your petition, Queen Esther? It shall be granted to y

No one can hide from God’s judgment. After giving a warning and a prophecy, Jeremiah under God’s direction speaks some specific words for the leaders of Judah, the remaining descendants of the house of David. Remember that somewhere in this line of descent there is a strand that will lead to Joseph, the adoptive father of Jesus, who therefore is also of the house of David. The future of the house of David balances on a knife blade, one step could end the line. The stakes ar

The king has shown kindness to Esther and invited her to come into the court. Now she is at the height of power, before the ruler of the largest empire of its time. Under Xerxes (c. 475; or some argue that it was later under Artaxerxes) the empire stretched from Libya to Pakistan and encompassed around 50 million people. Much of the empire was made up of conquered and displaced peoples (the Persian homeland is only Iran), but the empire was also known for its religious tole