Today, I am reading and commenting on  Daniel 11-12.

My lovely wife married me 22 years ago on the 23rd of this month.  So I am going to wish her Happy Anniversary every day from now until then.

Happy Anniversary, Darling!

When I was young, Christians spent a lot of time trying to interpret the apocalyptic prophecies such as those in this passage in an attempt to determine when Christ would return.  Sometime in the 1990s the Church in the United States got away from doing that.  While I think that is a good thing, as I believe Jesus made it clear that we will not know the date of return until it happens, we have also, for the most part, stopped trying to understand those passages.  That being said, I find it hard to know what to write about today’s passage.  However, the parts where the messenger talks about the end has some messages which we should take to heart.  He tells us that some of the wise will stumble, but they will be purified and made spotless by what they experience.  There will be a time of great distress, but those whose names are found written in the book will be delivered and those among them who have died will be raised to eternal life.  Then comes the part I want to focus on.  The messenger said that those who impart wisdom (the translation notes offer this as an alternative translation to what is translated as “who are wise”) and those who lead others to righteousness will shine brightly among those who are raised to eternal life.  While part of me wants to say that we should strive to impart wisdom and to lead others to righteousness, I have observed that most of the time the people who strive the hardest to do that have neither wisdom nor righteousness.  So, instead let us strive to live with wisdom and move towards righteousness.  Additionally, imparting wisdom and leading to righteousness are so closely related that they are almost the same thing.  We lead others to righteousness, to Christ, by imparting wisdom to them.  But, if we think we can impart wisdom because we are somehow better than those to whom we are imparting it, we lack wisdom and have not been led to righteousness.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Daniel 9-10.

My lovely wife married me 22 years ago on the 23rd of this month.  So I am going to wish her Happy Anniversary every day from now until then.

Happy Anniversary, Darling!

When Daniel realized that the time which Jeremiah had prophesied for Jerusalem to be desolate was coming to an end he began praying to God.  Daniel starts his prayer by praising God and by acknowledging that the punishment which God had meted out was deserved.  Only after confessing the sins of his people does Daniel beg forgiveness and restoration.  Then he makes a point which we must understand and internalize: Daniel does not ask God to restore them because of their righteousness.  He asks God to restore them because of God’s mercy.  In the same way, we need to recognize that we do not deserve the blessings we receive from God.  When we request things from God in prayer, we do not deserve to receive those things because of our righteousness, not even the things which we request for others.  No, our only basis for expecting God to answer our prayers is His goodness and mercy.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Daniel 7-8.

My lovely wife married me 22 years ago on the 23rd of this month.  So I am going to wish her Happy Anniversary every day from now until then.

Happy Anniversary, Darling!

Today’s passage contains Daniel’s vision of four beasts and his vision of the ram and the goat.  Traditionally, the four beasts are understood to be the same empires as those in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream which Daniel interpreted at the beginning of this book.  According to that interpretation, the beast like a lion is Babylon, the beast like a bear is Persia, the beast like a leopard with four heads is the Greek empire(s) established by Alexander, and the fourth beast would be the Roman empire (there is some debate about the fourth empire).  I am not convinced of this interpretation because when the fourth beast is slain and destroyed the other three are allowed to live for some time after that. It reads to me as if all four beasts existed at the same time.  I am not sure that the traditional interpretation is not correct, it just seems to me that it misses something.  I cannot, however, come up with a better interpretation.  What I do see in this vision is that someone who was “like a human being” (see translation notes) came before the throne of the Ancient of Days and was given authority and power over all of the earth in place of the four beasts.  I read the wording of the vision to suggest that the four beasts had incomplete authority over the earth, but that the One who was to come would have, does have, complete authority.  The various governments which arise over different parts of the world have authority for a time, but that authority is limited in scope.  While Jesus has authority for eternity and His authority is not limited in scope.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Daniel 5-6.

My lovely wife married me 22 years ago on the 23rd of this month.  So I am going to wish her Happy Anniversary every day from now until then.

Happy Anniversary, Darling!

There are many things we can learn from the story about the writing on the wall.  First, by the time you see the writing on the wall, let alone read it, it is too late.  Which brings me to the message.  In some ways that message is for all of us, at least the first part.  God has numbered our days, and while He may not yet have done so, He will bring them to an end.  And God is weighing us on His scales, if we rely on ourselves we will be found wanting.  When God weighs us on His scales only if we put our trust in Jesus will we not be found wanting.  Only by putting our faith in Him and allowing the Holy Spirit to transform us will God’s scales balance in our favor. But do not wait until you can read the writing on the wall, because then it will be too late.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Daniel 3-4.

My lovely wife married me 22 years ago on the 23rd of this month.  So I am going to wish her Happy Anniversary every day from now until then.

Happy Anniversary, Darling!

When Nebuchadnezzar made his gold statue and set up the ceremony for everyone to bow down to it, I think he imagined it as a unifying event which could help unify all of the peoples of his empire.  For Nebuchadnezzar this ceremony was political, not religious.  Nebuchadnezzar did not care if Jews worshiped God, as long as their first loyalty was to himself.  Thus the nature of his threat, “what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?”  Actually, this same attitude is what got Nebuchadnezzar in trouble in chapter 4 after his second dream.  In both cases, Nebuchadnezzar came to believe that no power could stand between him and his desires.  Returning to the story about the gold statue, those who reported Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did so in order to gain political power.  Which brings us to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  For them, this had nothing to do with politics, not because they were unaware of the politics involved, but because their worship of God outweighed, for them, the political implications of their actions.  They believed that God could, and would, rescue them from Nebuchadnezzar’s hand, but if God chose not to rescue them, they would serve no other god.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Daniel 1-2.

My lovely wife married me 22 years ago on the 23rd of this month.  So I am going to wish her Happy Anniversary every day from now until then.

Happy Anniversary, Darling!

We often focus on Daniel’s interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream.  However, today I am going to look at a few other things about that.  The first thing I would like to note is that Nebuchadnezzar’s request that his wise men interpret his dream without him telling them what the dream was suggests that Nebuchadnezzar had become skeptical of the mystical powers his wise men claimed.  When Daniel comes before the king, he denies having any mystical power and credits his interpretation entirely to God.  My understanding of what Daniel said was that anyone who put their faith in God could request what God had given Daniel and have an equal chance with Daniel of receiving the answer.  In considering this we should look at what Daniel did when he realized the danger he, and his friends, were in because of Nebuchadnezzar’s skepticism regarding his wise men.  Daniel went to his friends and asked them to pray, pleading with God for mercy.  Daniel himself then spent the night in prayer until God revealed the answer to him.  At that point Daniel thanked and praised God.  Additionally, when Daniel appeared before Nebuchadnezzar, he insisted that the credit for the interpretation belonged to God, not to himself.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Daniel 11-12.

The prophecy in chapter 11 looks much like what the people of Maccabean Judea may have understood of world events from the time of Daniel to themselves.  Or to put that another way, it looks somewhat like what happened with the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great and the wars between the Seleucid and Ptolemaic kingdoms which followed him, but not quite.  Or, in other words, it sounds like what someone knowledgeable about world affairs living in Judea at the time of the Maccabees might have thought had happened.  I want to state that, considering the degree to which the records left by the people of the time were self-serving (just as the records being left by people today) I am not convinced that it disagrees with actual history by as much as modern historians generally conclude.  This prophecy tells us that powerful rulers will make many plans, but they cannot foresee every eventuality and those unforeseen things will cause their plans to work out differently than they intend.  On the other hand, for God there are no unforeseen eventualities, so His plans always work out as He intended.

Then we have the finale of the Book of Daniel which discusses the main point of the latter half (approximately) of the book. Daniel did not understand (and neither do I) so he asked, “My lord, what will the outcome of all this be?” The answer he received was this: “Many will be purified, made spotless and refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked. None of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand.”  So, throughout history many things will happen, some good, many terrible, and those who seek God will be purified by these events, will be inspired to do ever more good.  While the wicked will continue to miss the point and not understand that doing God’s will would bring them greater joys than all of the selfish actions they choose instead.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Daniel 9-10.

I want to start by focusing on Daniel’s prayer.  In particular, this line, “We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy. ”  God does not answer our prayers because we deserve it, because we are such good people.  In fact, we deserve for God to reject our requests, even those we make for the benefit of others, because we are such sinful people.  Nevertheless, God is merciful and He will grant our requests (I am not going to discuss today those times when He seems to reject our requests).  I just said I was not going to discuss when God seems to reject our requests, however, Daniel gives us a hint as to what we should do before we make requests of God.  Daniel admits to his own sins, and to the sins of the people for whom he is about to make a request.  One final point about Daniel’s prayer: our sin brings shame on both ourselves and on God.

When I read chapter 10 here I am reminded of Ephesians 6:12. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

Before I get to what I want to write about this I want to state that it is not clear to me if chapter 10 refers to a distinctly different occasion from chapter 9, or the same one.

The messenger who came to answer Daniel’s prayer tells him that he started on his way immediately when Daniel began praying, but the “prince of the Persian kingdom” resisted him for 21 days until Michael, “one of the chief princes”, came to help him.  When I compare this with what Paul said in Ephesians it strikes me as suggesting the the kingdom of Persia had a spiritual being which represented it in the spiritual realm, and that this being opposed God’s messengers.  This leads me to the understanding that all human organizations (nations, businesses, non-profits, etc) have spiritual beings associated with them.  Further, those spiritual beings will generally oppose God.  My conclusion from looking at organizations of which I have knowledge is that we need to work very hard to ensure that the spiritual being which represents organizations of which we are part do not oppose God.  It seems the longer an organization is around the more likely it begins to serve itself and not its members or whatever goal it was established to promote.  Some organizations take longer to reach such a state than others and that appears to me to be a result of key people actively and knowingly working to prevent that from happening.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.