Daniel 1 (1 of 5)
Series: Daniel
Vermon Pierre
Daniel 1:3–4
Our tendency is to go with the flow. Social psychology of not wanting to stick out, not be too set apart from people around you. To wear similar fashions, but more than that. To go with what’s popular, to have same values, priorities of world around you. To believe same things.
Difficulty then of concept of holiness. Holy, Bible term to describe God. Literally means “set apart.” God is distinct, unique, set apart from the world, in every aspect of who he is. In case of book of Daniel, we see early on that he is set apart from the purposes and motives of the empires like Babylon. That he is a holy God, acting according to his holy purposes.
So question for people then and us today is, will we follow this God? Because to do this requires a commitment to this God that sets apart. To be a holy people committed to this God even if means standing out in the midst of unholy culture.
Daniel 1. Begin at very low point in Israel’s history. v.1-2 - In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim (605 b.c.), Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it.
Conquers city. Takes some of the stuff that in temple, bring it back to Babylon to put temple of Babylonian gods. Even worse, also takes back with him their kids.
Daniel 1:3–4 - 3 Then the king commanded Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the people of Israel, both of the royal family and of the nobility, 4 youths [i.e. teenagers, 13-16 years old] without blemish, of good appearance and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding learning, and competent to stand in the king’s palace.
Crushing and depressing sight. To see future leaders of Israel carried off to live permanently in Babylon. Imagine if North Korea somehow invaded Phoenix, went home to home, school to school, took back with them to North Korea best and brightest teenagers.
Now for Babylon, look at this as normal. This what we do. We ...
Series: Daniel
Vermon Pierre
Daniel 1:3–4
Our tendency is to go with the flow. Social psychology of not wanting to stick out, not be too set apart from people around you. To wear similar fashions, but more than that. To go with what’s popular, to have same values, priorities of world around you. To believe same things.
Difficulty then of concept of holiness. Holy, Bible term to describe God. Literally means “set apart.” God is distinct, unique, set apart from the world, in every aspect of who he is. In case of book of Daniel, we see early on that he is set apart from the purposes and motives of the empires like Babylon. That he is a holy God, acting according to his holy purposes.
So question for people then and us today is, will we follow this God? Because to do this requires a commitment to this God that sets apart. To be a holy people committed to this God even if means standing out in the midst of unholy culture.
Daniel 1. Begin at very low point in Israel’s history. v.1-2 - In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim (605 b.c.), Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it.
Conquers city. Takes some of the stuff that in temple, bring it back to Babylon to put temple of Babylonian gods. Even worse, also takes back with him their kids.
Daniel 1:3–4 - 3 Then the king commanded Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the people of Israel, both of the royal family and of the nobility, 4 youths [i.e. teenagers, 13-16 years old] without blemish, of good appearance and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding learning, and competent to stand in the king’s palace.
Crushing and depressing sight. To see future leaders of Israel carried off to live permanently in Babylon. Imagine if North Korea somehow invaded Phoenix, went home to home, school to school, took back with them to North Korea best and brightest teenagers.
Now for Babylon, look at this as normal. This what we do. We ...
There are 12856 characters in the full content. This excerpt only shows a 2000 character sample of the full content.
Price: $5.99 or 1 credit
