All Episodes
Displaying 31 - 60 of 67 in total
Episode 31: Gathering the flock
We've already seen how the closing verses of chapter 2 uses the metaphor of God as the Shepherd-King. And we've seen how the opening verses of chapter 4 paint a beauti...
Episode 32: The long view
Micah's oracle promises God's care for his flock, for the remnant of the people left after the exile. None of this would happen in Micah's lifetime. And although the p...
Episode 33: The Shepherd-King
We've raised the question of how long it would take for Micah's prophecy to be fulfilled. In Micah, God is portrayed as the Shepherd-King--and followers of Jesus shoul...
Episode 34: Bad news, good news
Doom and gloom, heartache and hope. The oracles of Micah ping back and forth. We've seen some remarkable words of hope in recent verses--but now its time to go back to...
Episode 35: The threshing floor
Unless God fights their battles, the people of Judah have no hope against the forces of Assyria or Babylon. Yet this is what Micah promises. Using the metaphor of thre...
Episode 36: Past, present, and future
The beginning of Micah chapter 5 brings us to one of the best known passages from the book: the prophecy of the one who would come from Bethlehem to rule God's people,...
Episode 37: The view from above
Making sense of prophecy requires a different way of looking at history: the texts can refer to both the people's current situation and the near or distant future at t...
Episode 38: He will be our peace
In the previous episode, I suggested that we need to have both a view from below and a view from above to read Micah (and other prophecy) rightly. This episode will ex...
Episode 39: Like the dew
God's people were always meant to be a blessing to others. But the remnant--the much smaller number who would eventually return from Babylonian exile--would find thems...
Episode 40: Like a lion
In the previous episode, we saw how Micah 5:7 prophesied that the remnant would be a blessing to the nations, like dew in an arid climate. But the next two verses port...
Episode 41: But first, this...
The book of Micah assumes that God is a covenant God, a God who is faithful to the promises made to Abraham and others. It's because of this that the remnant will even...
Episode 42: Security
Security and trust point to a basic need we share as vulnerable humans. Even kings need reassurance sometimes... In the previous episode, we considered Micah 5:10-15, ...
Episode 43: A severe love
"I will destroy..." The passage we've been examining over the last two episodes can be a disturbing one, particularly if we want to hold onto a one-dimensional view of...
Episode 44: Lawsuit
Chapter 6 shifts the scene to a courtroom: God is bringing a lawsuit against his people for their unfaithfulness to the covenant. Micah is the prosecuting attorney, an...
Episode 45: Remember your journey
God, as we've seen, is bringing a lawsuit against his people, and the verdict is not in question. But the case against Judah is not given in terms of a list of accusat...
Episode 46: Broken promises
The oracle in Micah 6, in which God brings a lawsuit against his people, mentions two people who otherwise would be bit players in the Old Testament drama: "Balak, kin...
Episode 47: Going through the motions?
In Micah 6:6-7, the people seem to give a response to the lawsuit. The language seems respectful, even worshipful: "With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down...
Episode 48: The life we’re meant to live
We come now to what may be the best known verse in the book, Micah 6:8, which summarizes in a nutshell how a life of true righteousness should look. It will take a few...
Episode 49: Behavior and character
Jesus often accused the Pharisees of hypocrisy. Though they excelled at following the rules of religious piety, they lacked the godly character that should have gone w...
Episode 50: ”Fake it till you make it”?
At some point, most people find themselves having to do something they don't know how to do. Should they "fake it till they make it"? When it comes to the Christian li...
Episode 51: God is calling
As we've seen, God doesn't want mere religious behavior from his people, no matter how impressive; he wants people of righteous character. In Micah 6:9, God calls to t...
Episode 52: Doing dishonest business
More words of condemnation: the people are accused of unethical business practices and other forms of wrongdoing, taking advantage of the poor and powerless...
Episode 53: The curse of futility
From the beginning of chapter 6, God has been bringing a lawsuit against his people. Now, in verses 13 to 15, we have the verdict--which is phrased in a way that runs ...
Episode 54: Momentum
If you took physics in school, you may remember the idea of momentum: once something is in motion, it will stay that way until some other force intervenes. But momentu...
Episode 55: Where’s the fruit?
To me, one of the oddest stories in the New Testament is that of Jesus cursing a fig tree. What did the fig tree to deserve it? But the story makes more sense against ...
Episode 56: Their best is the worst
The 16th century Italian statesman Machiavelli has the dubious honor of having a personality trait named after him: Machiavellianism. It describes someone who is manip...
Episode 57: Unraveling
It's bad enough that Judah's leaders have become corrupt. But worse, under their leadership, the entire moral fabric of the kingdom has unraveled. Micah gives a gloomy...
Episode 58: Watching and waiting
Is hope possible when the situation is so dire, when the entire nation of Judah has collapsed morally? Despite the dreary portrait Micah paints, he still watches and w...
Episode 59: The great reversal
We tend to think of tragedies and comedies as sad and funny respectively. And they often are. But in a classical sense, what makes a story a comedy is that there is a ...
Episode 60: Waitpower
What is hope? In one well-known description, a researcher describes it as "the will and the ways": a hopeful person is motivated to make something happen and can see a...