2 Chronicles 21 – Jehoshaphat
is succeeded by his son Jehoram
(also called Joram). Jehoram, age 32, has many brothers—Azariah, Jehiel,
Zechariah, Azariahu, Michael, and Shephatiah—and they are given many gifts “of
silver, gold, and costly items, and also some of Judah’s fortified towns”
(21:3); Jehoram is the oldest, howver, so he becomes the next king. “But when
Jehoram had become solidly established as king, he killed all his brothers and
some of the other leaders of Judah” (21:4). “He walked in the way of the kings
of Israel” (21:6).
He takes one of Ahab’s daughters as his wife. He even makes
“high places in the hill country of Judah” (21:11). He does what is evil, “[y]et the Lord would not destroy the house
of David because of the covenant that he had made with David, and since he had
promised to give a lamp to him and to his descendants forever” (21:7).
During his reign, Edom rebels and sets up a king of its own.
Jehoram tries to put them down, but the revolt continues. Libnah also—because
of Jehoram’s abandonment of the Lord, it says (21:10).
The prophet Elijah
writes him a letter that says because he has not walked in the ways of his
father, and because he has even killed brothers of his that were better than
him, “the Lord will bring a great plague on your people, your children, your
wives, and all your possessions, and you yourself will have a severe sickness
with a disease of your bowels . . .” (21:14-15). The
Jerusalem Bible note says this is the only mention of Elijah in Chronicles. Kings says nothing of Elijah being in Judah. This
reference, however, is to a prophetic document, not to a live appearance by the
prophet.
The Lord also rouses the Philistines and the Arabs against
him. They come and carry off all his possessions, even his children—all of them
except for Jehoahaz, the youngest
son. After eight years he dies—uncelebrated—and is buried in Jerusalem.
Augustine’s Treatise
on the Profit of Believing
24 - But you say,
Were it not better that you should give me a reason, that, wherever, that shall
lead me, I may follow without any rashness? Perhaps it were: but, it being so
great a matter, that you are by reason to come to the knowledge of God, do you think that all are qualified to
understand the reasons, by which the human soul is led to know God, or
many, or few? [Are all people, many people or few
people able to understand the reasons we are led to know God?] Few I think, you say. Do you believe that you are
in the number of these? It is not for me, you say, to answer this. Therefore
you think it is for him to believe you in this also: and this indeed he does:
only do you remember, that he has already twice believed you saying things
uncertain; that you are unwilling to believe him even once admonishing you in a
religious spirit. But suppose that it is so, and that you approach with a true
mind to receive religion, and that you are one of few men in such sense as to
be able to take in the reasons by which the Divine Power is brought into
certain knowledge; what? Do you think that other men, who are not endued with so serene a disposition, are to be denied
religion? Or do you think that they
are to be led gradually by certain steps unto those highest inner recesses?
You see clearly which is the more religious. For you cannot think that anyone whatever in a
case where he desires so great a thing, ought by any means to be abandoned or
rejected. But do you not think, that, unless he do first believe that he shall
attain unto that which he purposes; and do yield his mind as a suppliant; and,
submitting to certain great and necessary precepts, do by a certain course of
life thoroughly cleanse it, that he will not otherwise attain the things that
are purely true? Certainly you think so. What, then, is the case of those, (of
whom I already believe you to be one,) who are able most easily to receive
divine secrets by sure reason, will it, I ask, be to them any hindrance at all,
if they so come as they who at the first believe? I think not. But yet, you
say, what need to delay them? Because although they will in no way harm
themselves by what is done, yet they will harm the rest by the precedent. For there is hardly one who has a just notion
of his own power: but he who has a
less notion must be roused; he who has a greater notion must be checked: that
neither the one be broken by despair, nor the other carried headlong by
rashness. And this is easily done, if even they, who are able to fly, (that they be not alluring the occasion of
any into danger,) are forced for a short time to walk where the rest also may
walk with safety. This is the forethought of true religion: this the
command of God: this what has been handed down from our blessed forefathers,
this what has been preserved even unto us: to wish to distrust and overthrow
this, is nothing else than to seek a sacrilegious way unto true religion. And
whoso do this, not even if what they wish be granted to them are they able to
arrive at the point at which they aim. For whatever kind of excellent genius
they have, unless God be present, they creep on the ground. But He is then
present, if they, who are aiming at God, have a regard for their fellow men.
Than which step there can be found nothing more sure Heavenward. I for my part
cannot resist this reasoning, for how
can I say that we are to believe nothing without certain knowledge? Whereas
both there can be no friendship at all, unless there be believed something
which cannot be proved by some reason, and often stewards, who are slaves, are
trusted by their masters without any fault on their part. But in religion what
can there be more unfair than that the ministers of God believe us when we
promise an unfeigned mind, and we are unwilling to believe them when they enjoin
us anything. Lastly, what way can there be more healthful, than for a man to
become fitted to receive the truth by believing those things, which have been
appointed by God to serve for the previous culture and treatment of the mind?
Or, if you be already altogether fitted, rather to make some little circuit
where it is safest to tread, than both to cause yourself danger, and to be a
precedent for rashness to other men?
Now that I have a sense what this
treatise is really trying to get at, I have to say one of the first things I
read about Augustine that drew me to him was that he was the model Protestant
reformers looked to as a homolist. When he gave a sermon, he thought it was his
job to make the message he was giving understandable to all the different
people in his congregation. He knew there were very educated people there, but
there were also uneducated and simpler people present as well. And it was his
job to say something all could benefit from. I wish more homolists would set on
their sights on this standard.
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