Let’s look at the first two verses of Daniel, chapter one. Don’t panic, we’re not going to read through Daniel two verses at a time.
However, let’s remember the goal: finding our way, as people of faith, as we live amid moral outrage.
In these early stages, we will spend quite a bit of time in chapter 1.
That Nebuchadnezzar laid siege and conquered Judah is a historic fact. Not that I look for science to prove the Bible, but there are interesting archeological finds.
The early parts of the Book of Daniel provide more than the events he and his friends are experiencing, they also provide their frame-of-reference, their foundations.
The first foundational tidbit is a boulder: Daniel saw God’s Hand in History. Do you?
Consider closely the following words:
1In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. 2 And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand…
These words provide a very foundational Biblical point of view.
1. People of faith are real world people—Daniel places his experience not in fantasy but in a historically verifiable event.
2. People of faith understand that nothing happens outside of God’s will—Daniel explicitly states that it is the Lord who gave Jehoiakim over.
These are not small points.
People with a biblical worldview are real world people who understand God is part of the real world—involved in every aspect of our lives.
Holding this point of view immediately evokes, the question “Why”. “Why does God let unpleasant, even bad things happen?”
We will unpack that question two posts from now. First, there is another question upstream of that one we should consider.
The question, “Is it right to look for meaning in the events of history?”
To the secularist, the story of Judah being overthrown, is simple: it is the Law of the Jungle. The mighty state has overthrown the weaker.
They would assert that the nation of Israel has no special place, that view is merely a religious myth.
Here I think we must, as Christians, pause and understand that the decision as to whether history can have meaning is HUGE.
John Gray, Professor of the History of European Thought at the London School of Economics, puts it this way (Lennox, pp.15-16)
“If you believe that humans are animals, there can be no such thing as the history of humanity, only the lives of particular humans. If we speak of the history of the species at all, it is only to signify the unknowable sum of these lives. As with other animals, some lives are happy, and some are wretched. Looking for meaning in history is like looking for patterns in the clouds. Nietzsche knew this, but he could not accept it. He was trapped in the chalk circle of Christian hopes.”
Let’s disregard for a moment that Gray lumps humans with all animals…we are no different than any other species.
Let’s simply look at his assumption. If Gray is right, then his book, which is part of history, can have no meaning beyond himself. If he asserts it does, then he is being logical incoherent. “Like all who espouse such relativism, he falls into the error of making himself and his ideas the exception to the logical consequences of those ideas” (Lennox, p.16).
Please understand that this point of view—that history has no meaning—is widely held today and we therefore must be prepared to engage others realizing that their point of reference will clash with ours.
The question then becomes—and it is the question for the next post—why do we believe that history has meaning—is there evidence for such a belief?
But for today, let me return to an earlier question. Do you believe that God, who is outside of history, is the One who fills it with meaning?