Friday, July 11, 2008

Yahweh will save

“The question that needs to be asked is not “what should This country take from Isaiah?” but instead “what should Christians learn about faith in God in the context of war from these prophetic texts?” This second question returns to the two fundamental issues that were raised in the introduction:
Who are we (identity)? What are we to do (mission)? This leads me to two additional lessons that I feel the people of God must learn from the prophet. To begin with, we see that believers are called to trust in the absolute power of Yahweh to deliver. One may protest, “This is naïve. It will not work. All the prayers and calls to believe in God cannot save us from enemy attack! We have to be responsible, pragmatic, and prepare our defenses.” How much we sound like the Judah of Isaiah’s day! The prophet’s point was that Yahweh was able to save. To depend on horses and chariots and mortar and brick is to rely on human cunning and the weakness of flesh. These will fail us, sooner if not later.”—Carroll, War in the Bible and Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century, pages 75-76

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