In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand…
Daniel 1:1-2
Some time ago, a friend directed my attention to Daniel 1 and Ezekiel 12 as being relevant to what I teach about God and money. The relevance wasn’t immediately obvious to me but when I studied the passages afresh I began to see things that I hadn’t noticed before.
The first is that Daniel is not only the book which prophecies that from then onwards the people of God would live under foreign domination, and foresees those dominions (or empires), but is also a manual of how the people of God are to live under governments and within societies that do not keep God's ways.
The second thing was how spiritually perceptive Daniel was, right from the start of his captivity. The book begins with the passage at the start of this Reflection. That was an incredible insight for the time! I think that Daniel must have been among only a very few Jews who actually saw God’s hand, positively, in what happened. Everyone else looked on it as a national disaster, as God abandoning His people.
It could be argued that the opening of Daniel was written later in Daniel’s life, or after his death by the editor who collated the book, but I believe that most of the book is constructed from Daniel’s personal papers and is, essentially, what he wrote contemporaneously. I think Daniel saw God at work and that’s why he was able to cooperate so effortlessly in God’s purpose.
The third thing is why Daniel and his friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, refused to eat Babylonian food. They were chosen to learn Babylonian ways because they were of the Jewish aristocracy and intelligent and capable of learning ‘the literature and language of the Chaldeans’. This included what the Babylonians would have called science but what the Jews would call the occult! (In Daniel 2, we read how Daniel was among magicians, enchanters and sorcerers to be executed for the failure of his colleagues to interpret the King’s dream.)
Why did Daniel and his three friends submit to learning things forbidden in the Torah but refuse to eat food not forbidden? I think that it was more than a symbolic refusal, especially as Daniel goes about it with great tact. I wonder if there were social implications, so that by not joining in the meals, innocent in themselves as far as most of the food was concerned, they might be tempted into other things, like gluttony, drunkenness, unsuitable entertainments and corrupting relationships.
Figuratively, we shouldn’t feast at the world’s table or get drunk on the world's wine. We shouldn’t be ‘eating up’ everything the world is selling: avarice, covetousness, vanity, pride, celebrity, sex, and anything else that fuels the consumer society in which we live. If we do partake, we must do so with carefulness, anxious that we are not contaminated by it, and it seems to me better to follow the example of Daniel and his three friends.
In passing, I would add that it’s also very interesting to see where Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to cooperate other than at eating the King’s food. It was at worshipping a giant statue that probably represented world empires, as King Nebuchadnezzar had previously seen in a dream, and at not obeying King Darius’ decree to stop worshipping Jehovah.
What in particular struck me about Ezekiel 12 was that the prophet was himself captive in Babylon and that the exiles with him thought that life was better for the Israelites back in Jerusalem. God therefore told Ezekiel to act out the way of life in Jerusalem. He was to dig a hole in a wall and carry his belongings through it, to symbolise how more Israelites would be taken in to captivity. He was ‘to eat [his] bread with quaking, and drink water with trembling and with anxiety’. Older translations finish that quote, ‘…with carefulness.’ As I indicated earlier, having to eat and drink with carefulness is never a good thing.
Daniel and Ezekiel were God's witnesses in Babylon: Daniel primarily to the rulers; Ezekiel primarily to the exiles. Christians today are God's witnesses in pagan cultures but there are many who look at the state of the countries where they live and wish they lived somewhere else or who long for a time in the past when their country seemed to respect and live by 'Christian' values.Yet although both Daniel nor Ezekiel no doubt wished that God's people were living faithfully in the land God had given them, they nevertheless embraced what God was doing through the paganism around them. Their discernment enabled them to cooperate with God's plan and achieve significant social change.
Many of the Jews in Babylon, however, simply acquiesced and adopted the ways of the society they found themselves in. They blended in. They didn't abandon their religion: they still worshipped, prayed and kept the Torah. But they began to live and trade like everyone else, so that when they had the opportunity to return to Israel, only a small minority went.
Today, many Christians seem to be 'eating and drinking' everything that capitalism offers. And, moreover, eating carelessly ! One of the great myths of capitalism is that if large corporations and rich businesspeople are allowed to make huge profits, then everyone – rich and poor – will benefit, as the standard of living for all of us is lifted on the rising tide of prosperity. The reality, of course, is very different. Except in the rare examples where businesspeople use a substantial proportion of their wealth for the benefit of their workers, such as the housing, social and medical facilities that a few Victorians provided for their workers, capitalism only serves to systematically move wealth from the poor to the rich and to progressively widen the gap between them.
Daniel and Ezekiel were God's witnesses in Babylon: Daniel primarily to the rulers; Ezekiel primarily to the exiles. Christians today are God's witnesses in pagan cultures but there are many who look at the state of the countries where they live and wish they lived somewhere else or who long for a time in the past when their country seemed to respect and live by 'Christian' values.Yet although both Daniel nor Ezekiel no doubt wished that God's people were living faithfully in the land God had given them, they nevertheless embraced what God was doing through the paganism around them. Their discernment enabled them to cooperate with God's plan and achieve significant social change.
Many of the Jews in Babylon, however, simply acquiesced and adopted the ways of the society they found themselves in. They blended in. They didn't abandon their religion: they still worshipped, prayed and kept the Torah. But they began to live and trade like everyone else, so that when they had the opportunity to return to Israel, only a small minority went.
Today, many Christians seem to be 'eating and drinking' everything that capitalism offers. And, moreover, eating carelessly ! One of the great myths of capitalism is that if large corporations and rich businesspeople are allowed to make huge profits, then everyone – rich and poor – will benefit, as the standard of living for all of us is lifted on the rising tide of prosperity. The reality, of course, is very different. Except in the rare examples where businesspeople use a substantial proportion of their wealth for the benefit of their workers, such as the housing, social and medical facilities that a few Victorians provided for their workers, capitalism only serves to systematically move wealth from the poor to the rich and to progressively widen the gap between them.
One of the great tragedies of ‘Western’ Christianity is how so very many Christians and churches have bought into this capitalist myth - literally, 'eating it up'!. It seems to me that they believe that a rising tide of prosperity can benefit the Kingdom of God, also. Too often, Christians go into business in order to make money they can donate to the church, adopting the normal business ethos that everyone else takes for granted. Or they start charities that function along contemporary 'business' lines. This may look like what St Paul did when he made tents to support his own ministry but it's only a superficial similarity.
I've often written in these Reflections about the difference between free trade in goods and services that are of value to communities, and fairly trading in these in order to make the money needed to live, and the maximisation of profit that is fundamental to capitalism. The different is crucial. We can fulfill the fundamental command to love our neighbours as ourselves when we trade to serve but never when we trade primarily for our own profit! The indiscriminate pursuit of profit has led to trade in goods and services that are not just of dubious value to people but which harm them, threatening their physical, mental, emotional and social well-being.
Money is the temptation that distracts us from living for God, the resource we think we need to do His work and the leaven that corrupts our work for God. It's become 'another Gospel', an alternative Good News for people to live by! Generations of Christian teachers have therefore warned about justifying a love of money by saying how much they will be able to help the church and the poor. In the 4th Century, John Cassian warned against corrupting Christ’s words, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’, to justify avarice and greed. Even rationalising that if they get more, they can give more! In the 19th Century, Charles Finney warned Christians about the dangers of ‘conforming to the world’ in business practice in order to make money that could be used to fund good works and help to expand the Kingdom of God. He said, ‘A holy church, that would act on the principles of the Gospel, would spread the Gospel faster that all the money that ever was in New York, or ever will be’.
I've often written in these Reflections about the difference between free trade in goods and services that are of value to communities, and fairly trading in these in order to make the money needed to live, and the maximisation of profit that is fundamental to capitalism. The different is crucial. We can fulfill the fundamental command to love our neighbours as ourselves when we trade to serve but never when we trade primarily for our own profit! The indiscriminate pursuit of profit has led to trade in goods and services that are not just of dubious value to people but which harm them, threatening their physical, mental, emotional and social well-being.
Money is the temptation that distracts us from living for God, the resource we think we need to do His work and the leaven that corrupts our work for God. It's become 'another Gospel', an alternative Good News for people to live by! Generations of Christian teachers have therefore warned about justifying a love of money by saying how much they will be able to help the church and the poor. In the 4th Century, John Cassian warned against corrupting Christ’s words, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’, to justify avarice and greed. Even rationalising that if they get more, they can give more! In the 19th Century, Charles Finney warned Christians about the dangers of ‘conforming to the world’ in business practice in order to make money that could be used to fund good works and help to expand the Kingdom of God. He said, ‘A holy church, that would act on the principles of the Gospel, would spread the Gospel faster that all the money that ever was in New York, or ever will be’.
Daniel and Ezekiel stand as examples of godly men with important work to do for God in secular societies. We do well to learn from them if we wish to influence our own society.
© Copyright Philip Evans 2014.
What is freely given should be freely shared, so please feel free to share these Reflections freely and at no cost to others.
What is freely given should be freely shared, so please feel free to share these Reflections freely and at no cost to others.
