Word Live: Consuming One Another
Think back over the blessings you have given, received and indulged in over Christmas – and thank God for his generosity to you.
Bible passage
Isaiah 9:18 – 10:4
18 Surely wickedness burns like a fire;
it consumes briers and thorns,
it sets the forest thickets ablaze,
so that it rolls upwards in a column of smoke.
19 By the wrath of the Lord Almighty
the land will be scorched
and the people will be fuel for the fire;
they will not spare one another.
20 On the right they will devour,
but still be hungry;
on the left they will eat,
but not be satisfied.
Each will feed on the flesh of their own offspring:
21 Manasseh will feed on Ephraim, and Ephraim on Manasseh;
together they will turn against Judah.
Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away,
his hand is still upraised.
10 Woe to those who make unjust laws,
to those who issue oppressive decrees,
2 to deprive the poor of their rights
and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,
making widows their prey
and robbing the fatherless.
3 What will you do on the day of reckoning,
when disaster comes from afar?
To whom will you run for help?
Where will you leave your riches?
4 Nothing will remain but to cringe among the captives
or fall among the slain.
Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away,
his hand is still upraised.
Holy Bible, New International Version® Anglicized, NIV® Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Explore
It is easy to read passages like this (v 20) and picture evil regimes and primitive, cannibalistic tribes. ‘We would never be like that,’ we think.
We may not actually ‘feed on the flesh of [our] offspring’ (9:20), but there are many other ways in which we ‘consume’ one another. We ignore those who serve us at the supermarket, in the café or on the bus (let alone those who sweep the streets or patrol them for our safety). We give our business to companies that exploit, mistreat and underpay their workers. We manipulate opportunities to our own advantage. We consume more than our fair share of the world’s resources.
We may not make the unjust laws or create the poverty in our world, but we are often complicit – albeit unthinkingly. And we rarely do all we can to seek justice or stand up for the oppressed.
What will we do on the day of reckoning (10:3)? What excuses will we give when God asks how we stewarded the resources, voice and opportunities he gave us?
These words are hard to hear. It’s difficult to recognise and change our habits of ‘looking out for number one’.
Author
Jennie Pollock
Respond
Ask God to make himself truly number one in your life. Ask him to forgive you for the times you have put yourself first, and to give you his powerful, sacrificial love for others.
Deeper Bible study
'You answer us with awesome and righteous deeds, God our Saviour, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas’.1
Again, the relevance of Isaiah’s writings to our own society can’t be missed by anyone reading these verses with open eyes! The world has changed in ways that would have been completely unthinkable to Isaiah: the worldwide systems of telecommunication, transport systems, new technologies, medical advances. Life has changed dramatically even since my student days when electric typewriters were hardly known and computers filled whole rooms, with far less storage than a memory stick today. What is clear, though, is that human beings, their attitudes and their behaviours have in many ways not changed at all! It is still so often every man and woman for themselves. Isaiah was shocked that it was not even just nation against nation, it was family against family and tribe against tribe.
Surely in today’s world we will not find governments making laws that benefit the rich and powerful and disempower the poor and the weak? Surely in today’s world, businesses will make sure that all those who contribute to the success of the company at every level are given in their pay a fair share of any profits? Surely in today’s world we have advanced enough to be able to disagree without any expression of hatred, without any violence? Surely we have risen above racial and other forms of prejudice against those we consider to be less worthy or less right than we think we are? If only that were true!! One wonders if Jesus had been reading through these chapters when he presented his stories about the uselessness – and indeed dangers – of amassing riches and the importance of caring for others, including those from other communities. One can see Isaiah’s influence right through Jesus’ teaching, but maybe especially in Matthew 5–7 and 10 and in Luke 10 and 12.
Lord, your hand is upraised (10:4) against self-seeking materialism and a legal system that benefits the rich. May our hands be upraised too.
Author
Mary Evans
