Opus 2026-117: Survival Virtue

One of the rabbit trails that run through my head starts with a verse in Romans,

Romans 11:26 (KJV) And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:

This generates a question, “Who or what is Israel?”  This leads to the theory that the Israel mentioned here is not everyone throughout history with Jewish DNA but the true Israel who are highlighted earlier in the book as Paul quotes Isaiah,

Romans 9:27 (KJV) Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved:

What spoke to me today was a verse I read,

1 Kings 18:3 (KJV) And Ahab called Obadiah, which [was] the governor of [his] house. (Now Obadiah feared the LORD greatly:

Ahab was one of the most evil of the kings of Israel.  He was the one married to Jezebel.  Obadiah is called out as a faithful follower of God.  In spite of that he was allowed to serve as a high official in Ahab’s administration.  I found that encouraging.

Obadiah represents one form of God’s faithful remnant.  In this case he was in the middle of a pagan court and allowed to live his life.  I am not trying to make this a promise for us but it does point out that being faithful to God does not automatically produce a death sentence.

What does the future hold?  If the church does not stand up and become an agent of revival then it will not be a happy ending.  I think this points out that it will still pay off to be faithful.  It may be that when the evil elite gains control they will need a few honorable people they can trust. That might be you.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-032: Parallels

As we were driving to dinner my son was sharing with me one of the great insights into the Star Trek world.  He said in the original series there were no bathrooms.  To be honest this is some thing that I had never noticed, would have never noticed, and certainly don’t think needed to be noticed.  But evidently it’s still true, because they added them in later series.

This morning sitting on the porch, it occurred to me that we don’t seem to have a lot of reference to sanitary facilities in the Bible either.  The only place that comes to mind is only found in modern translations.  The first place I saw it was in the Living Bible.  Here it is in the CEV.

(1Ki 18:27 CEV) At noon, Elijah began making fun of them. "Pray louder!" he said. "Baal must be a god. Maybe he's day-dreaming or using the toilet or traveling somewhere. Or maybe he's asleep, and you have to wake him up."

I can’t think of any major Bible personality that is explained as having gone to the bathroom.  Is there a theological significance to that?  I doubt it.  It’s still a fact.

homo unius libri