By Renée Zitzloff When I was preparing the lesson on Ezekiel 32 I noticed again (I’m great with the obvious) the seeming redundancy of this ancient book. But reading the chapter anew, expecting to yawn profusely, I suddenly was jolted by the graphic nature of the violence being described. I was to study this with…
Category: Classroom Notes
Bully on the Playground
Habakkuk draws its reader right in, questioning the Lord’s dominion over the enemies of war, famine, poverty, and injustice. What kind of Lord won’t listen and won’t save? Habakkuk doesn’t mess around with niceties, listing the Lord’s steadfast love, mercy, patience, justice, and strength. He goes straight for the jugular. And teaching Habakkuk to young…
The uncomfortable question of self-preservation: Nahum 3
The Lord immediately comes after Nineveh in this violent, chaotic final chapter of the book of Nahum. The author justifies the attack and then brings the reader into the midst of battle. The Lord lays Nineveh open to her enemies, just as her enemies were once open to Nineveh’s attacks. The great city thought that…
He who must not be named
This week, the youngest class completed the first chapter of Nahum. In addition to continuing our study of key terms like “vengeance,” and “whirlwind,” we took the opportunity to practice Hebrew vocabulary, using the words “Yahweh,” and “shalom” to help illustrate the “good news” at the end of chapter 1: 14 The Lord has issued…
Ominous delight: Nahum 3
The second chapter of the book of Nahum continues on the theme of the Lord as the whole system: the good and the bad, the up and the down, the victory and the defeat. As the whirlwind of the Lord becomes painfully concrete in war, the Israelites learn from their victory over Nineveh how easy…
The One Who Creates the Trouble IS the Refuge in Times of Trouble
The older children and teens began the study of Nahum and were immediately struck by the wrath of the Lord–vengeance, punishment, whirlwind, storm, dried up sea and river, withering blossoms, earthquakes, indignation, anger, fire, shattering rock–this is the fury of the Lord. In the midst of all these descriptions of wrath, the text barely mentions,…
Matthew’s Question
I remember the first time I heard the gospel. I don’t remember the sermon that followed. I remember the reading. I can’t have been more than 9 or 10 years old. It was the Sunday before Nativity, probably the first Christmas after my mom’s parents had passed away. Taking my place in the gospel’s honor…
The Lord: The storm and the shelter from the storm…(Nahum 1)
The Lord is a paradox with a nasty edge in Nahum. After everyone read through the first chapter of Nahum, I asked what struck everyone about this chapter. One person noticed that the Lord seemed malevolent with the narrative’s emphasis on “vengeance”; another noticed that the Lord’s promise here in the text to keep the…
God Will Crush You Anytime . . . and He Might Just Pick Up the Pieces
This was the title the children of Ephesus School named their Micah play performed last week. Actually, if it were up to them and I hadn’t interfered, they would have kept the tidy title God Will Crush You Anytime. It was a matter of adding cherry flavor to the medicine . . . it’s a…
Nahum and the Minor Prophets
This week I spoke to our adults and presented the book of Nahum in light of the other books we have been reading. I presented how reading Nahum in the context of the other Minor Prophets enhances the message of the opposing faithfulness of the Lord and the fickleness of Israel. In our Bible the…