Ezekiel 32 – Egypt’s pharaoh is again compared to a crocodile, snorting, churning the waters and muddying its streams (32:2). God’s net will be thrown over this crocodile and its carcass will be scattered, leaving the country in darkness. The world will be shocked at the fate of Egypt.

Egypt will go down to Sheol and there meet with those who have died in battles before – Assyria, Elam [ancient civilization in SW Iran], Meshech, Tubal, Edom, the princes of the North…

Ezekiel 31 – In the spring of 587, Ezekiel is addressed by God to say to Pharaoh that Egypt can be compared to a cedar of Lebanon “with noble branches, thick-set needles and lofty trunk. Its top pierces the clouds. The waters have made it grow, the deep has made it tall, pouring its rivers round the place where it is planted, sending its streams to all the other trees” (31:3-4).

“[I]n its shade every kind of people sat . . . It was the envy of every tree in…

Ezekiel 29  – The year is 588-587 BC. Ezekiel goes on to prophesy against the Pharaoh of Egypt, the “great crocodile wallowing in [the] Niles” (29:3). God is going to “put hooks through [his] jaws,” pull him out of the Nile, drop him in the desert and give him “as food to the beasts of the earth and the birds of heaven, so that all the inhabitants of Egypt may learn that I am Yahweh” (29:6).

He is disappointed that they have not been more supportive to the House of…

As an alternative research project, I set out to capture the heart of Robert Barclay, the great Quaker theologian and apologist, in poetry. His systematic work referred to as his Apology outlines 15 propositions written to defend Quaker theology’s orthodoxy in the face of its critics, who often confused Quakers with other—often stranger—radical religious sects of…

The election season now mercifully over, we can next draw some conclusions.

Obama won, in large part, due to changing demographics. Regardless of other theories dangled by the media in front of the American people, a very simple rationale is in force. Populations have shifted away from the Rust Belt in the north to the Sun Belt in the south. The…

Josh Reid spoke this week in meeting about Psalm 131:2, "I have calmed and quieted myself, I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I am content."

Ezekiel 28 – The prophecy against the kingdom of Tyre – great trading city and center of the region. Tyre is condemned for being proud enough to consider itself “a god.”  But foreigners will be brought against them

Tyre was created perfect – full of natural riches and guarded by god’s ensigns. But Tyre’s “busy trading has filled you with violence and sin” (28:16). The dishonesty of their trade, however, and the pride they showed has brought them to ashes. They have…

Ever think about spiritual currency? I hadn't, not in those exact terms, until last Sunday when our Quaker minister gave a brief message on the subject, along with a reading of Jesus' parable of the talents.…

Ezekiel 26 – Tyre was an island city off the coast of Phoenicia. It was a commercial hub in the region and built impressive buildings and connected a near-by island to it. They were subjected to a long, long siege by the Neo-Babylonians (13 years) but while the siege ruined the city’s commerce and power, it failed to bring the city down. Alexander the Great conquered it and built a causeway from the mainland out to it.

Here Ezekiel…

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" when we are Quakering theology rather than building a Quaker theology we are involved in a conversation much larger than our group alone. It requires we maintain openness to the ideas and ways of being of others; but more than openness, it requires we listen and develop a deep familiarity as well. It means recognizing that honest engagement with other communities of faith will challenge us and call us to change individually and as a movement. Quakering implies…

Ezekiel 24  – Ezekiel, who is in Babylon, prophesies that the city of Jerusalem is now under siege and shall suffer complete destruction and death of the population by the sword – all because of its unfaithfulness.

Ezekiel’s telling of the history of Israel, from its beginnings, is one that focuses only on the failures of faith and continual passions for unwholesome customs and idolatry. Here the message is more that God has continually had to punish Israel for the…

Author’s note: I have taken the liberty of making use of Ben Pink Dandelion’s reference to a specific manner of Quaker practice as “liberal-liberal” Friends. As one who identifies closely with Conservative Friends, I am a Hicksite and identify as an FGC liberal Friend. My comments are more concerned with identity and intelligibility than an overarching critique of FGC Friends, which has a far different…

Ezekiel 23 – Now comes an allegorical history of Jerusalem and Samaria. They are described as two women, “Daughters of the same mother” (23:2) who became prostitutes in Egypt. Their names were “Oholah” (Samaria) and Oholibah (Judah).

Oholah played the whore and God has handed her over to “her lovers, to those Assyrians for whom she lusted” (23:9-10). Though the sister – Judah – saw her reduced to shame, she too lusted for her neighbors – for the Assyrians with their…

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“Everything happens for a reason…” “It’s all part of God’s plan….” Hardly a week goes by that I don’t hear someone say one of these phrases, or something very like it.  I always wince.

These phrases are often meant to offer comfort after some unhappy event.  Perhaps a hoped for job offer doesn’t come through. Perhaps a romance comes to an unexpected end.  A friend then consoles you with these words: “everything happens for a reason,” or “it’s all part of God’s plan.”

These…

Ezekiel 21 – The same prophesy of destruction is directed to the people of the Negeb. The King of Babylon will stop at the crossroads that lead either to Jerusalem or to Rabbah of the Ammonites, and there he will conduct all kids of magic to see which one he is meant to attack. It will be Jerusalem. But the Ammonites too, practitioners of all kinds of “lying omens,” will be slaughtered.

The prophet here seems to wander away from the…

This week we heard from Paul Anderson on Psalm 127, "Unless the Lord Builds the House...and the Home."

ESR alum Scot Miller shares his thoughts on Quakers and apocalyptic, utopian, and heterotopian streams of thought:

Our separate space, set aside for worship and the living out of testimonies, can only be maintained over time if we reassess our role and participation in liberal democracy, and how such participation…

Sorry for the two days without posts. I am on Long Island and we have been without power because of Hurricane Sandy. We are fortunate to have power back now; many are still without.

Ezekiel 19 – There follows here a poetic “dirge” lamenting the fall of Israel – King Jehoahaz is depicted as a young lion who learned to be a “man-eater” (19:3). “The nations combines against him; he was caught in their pit; they dragged him off with hooks to the land of…