Is there a connection between what I know and how I behave, between learning and doing? Some have claimed that there is no connection, that a person may know moral behavior but not live morally, and that there is no necessary link between knowing and doing.

The Wise Man of Proverbs disagrees.

God’s people are being mocked by their enemies and find themselves in captivity in their homes. Is this just? Will there ever be justice?

God convenes his court. The “coastlands,” Israel’s perennial enemy, are on trial and Israel is invited to watch or listen in. God is raising up Cyrus, King of Persia, to judge the nations and the coastlands are next.

Justice! Justice for God’s people who feel like a “faintly burning wick” or a “bruised reed.” Where will this justice come from? From God’s servant.

Remarkably this servant will open the eyes of the blind and bring prisoners out of dungeons, but he will not be like an invading army. He “will not cry aloud or lift up his voice,” he will be careful of the “faintly burning wick” and the “bruised reed.”

Spiritual blindness and deafness are self-inflicted conditions. God’s people suffer with both. They are blind to the glory of God, and they refuse to hear and obey his voice. God says that it is in this condition that he “gave them up” to the looter and plunderer. This is why they find themselves in exile. Even though God’s people were “set on fire all around,” they “did not understand,” or “take it to heart.”

Read Reflect The themes of forming and creating come up over and over in Isaiah. People in rebellion against God form and create idols. God, here, forms and creates Israel. When people create idols, they turn to them for salvation. When God creates his people, his people need to turn to their creator for salvation. […]

Read Reflect Remember. Remembering is the spiritual discipline that builds faith in God’s promises. God is telling his people about what seems to be an unlikely future: There will be a way back through the wilderness and streams there to quench their thirst as they go. How can this be? God reminds them how he […]

Read Reflect I remember a time in my life when I was somewhat disconnected from my local church. I didn’t seem to be engaging in fellowship, and wasn’t as active in serving. I don’t know that I would call it backsliding, but between work and the many other things I had going on it was […]