Wednesday, August 24, 2022

 

Wednesday, August 24, 2022


Psalms 130; 131; 133

2 Chronicles 33:1-20

Romans 15:14-21


Observance: Bartholomew, Apostle and Martyr


When he was in distress he entreated the favour of the LORD his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of His ancestors... Then Manasseh knew that the LORD indeed was God.


Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer spoke once about the famous statue of David by the Renaissance artist Michaelangelo. He said that this statue, far from being a piece of Christian art, was in fact one of the art worlds most flagrant displays of human hubris. The idea communicated by the statue was the idea that humans are the ones who take the unshaped piece of rock that is the self, and we then carve ourselves out as who we would ideally like to be.


If we spend any more than a fleeting second of time to think as to whether this concept lines up with reality we will see how foolish Renaissance philosophy really was. Not that it was limited to the Renaissance; there are traces of this thought in Roman Stoicism, Medieval Scholasticism, the Enlightenment, all the way up to our times in Post-Modernism. Manasseh thought this too. He went about his kingdom rebuilding the cult his father eradicated in the vain hope that he could control the spiritual realm, and therefore, the physical realm.


He was only half-right. Humans do have power and authority over the created world, but this power and authority rests on the word of the true God, not our own effort. The high honour of being God's representative on earth relies on our obedience to the God in whose image we are made. This starts with giving credit where credit is due. Paul feels he has permission to write such a long letter to the church in Rome (the longest letter in the Bible, in fact), because he is carrying out the work of God by the power of God. This is a liberating fact to hold as true in our hearts, because, as we already know, this power God wields is the awesome power of His divine love, love that has the power to destroy death. When we give God the credit God is due, we are showing God our love by acting in truth, as well as participating in the power of God's love in building His kingdom on earth.



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