We took the first two weeks of our fall 2008 small group schedule to determine our group's direction as to what to study. We landed on the Old Testament book of Isaiah. After a slow start due to student schedules and my vacation we had our initial study in Isaiah last night (11/16/2008). We studied Isaiah; the man's context, his culture, his social position, family life, dates of the beginning and end of his ministry, and the international setting he was living through. We uncovered a most interesting aspect of Isaiah which is that he was song writer, poet, and prose author all wrapped up in one. He also used incredibly beautiful metaphors and also authored some most famous personifications, "the fields and the trees will clap their hands." He is a song writers dream come true and in going over the text we realized that there is more than one praise and worship song that we sing at church that borrows from Isaiah.
Only the first chapter was read. It is a poem. It points out the folly of Israel's ways, the consequences of those ways, and also God's great love for His people. We dissected the chapter in verses of five looking for themes, metaphor, applications. The group got through verse ten and then we broke for prayer, but another issue came up.
That issue was the question, "How do we, as followers of Christ, deal with the debate regarding the challenges that the Theory of Evolution has to the biblical account of Creation?" We took a little detour for the better part of thirty minutes. What is really at stake in this debate? Is it actually necessary to defend the faith by proving that creation happened and that there is a creator god? Or is the real issue about who Jesus Christ is? We talked a bit about this and I think it would be good to come prepared to discuss it a bit more this coming Sunday.
The painting above is a rendering of Isaiah having his lips cleansed by hot coals. Interesting? No?
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