Obadiah

Last night our Bible study looked at Obadiah. Yes, it's a totally random book, but we'd been spending a lot of time in the new testament and feeling like the minor prophets never get any love.

As Harrison and I planned the lesson we quickly learned why they don't. We don't know who Obadiah was (it means "Servant of God" or "Worshiper of God", might just be a title, and there are like 7 of them in the OT). We don't know when it was written (a couple of guesses within a couple hundred years). It's only one chapter long, and pretty much the whole thing is Obadiah telling Edom that God is going to destroy them for "standing aloof" on the day of Israel's distress. They just watched while Jerusalem was attacked, laughed at their misfortune, and took advantage of the besieged Israelites. We don't even know if the Edomites ever got the message, just that they were eventually destroyed.

Much of study was a struggle to find the practical application. Don't be proud in our rocky strongholds (vs3). Don't stand aloof of our brothers or mock their distress (vs11-12). It's easy to progress from not helping our brothers to taking advantage of them (vs11-14). God is faithful to fulfill His word and His judgment.

We were left kind of feeling like... well, that we were stretching it a little. Why is this book here? It's an encouragement to Israelites getting dragged off to exile, less so to us. What's the deal?

And then mere hours later I had a conversation in which is brought to my attention how I have very much been ignoring some of my brothers in times of distress. It's been easy for me to get focused on "ministry" and distracted from loving (and challenging) those around me. Ridiculous.