ISSL Reflections January 15 2023 Isaiah 48:3–8a, 17 Post 3

VII.
Can you remember hearing,

“Why are you always so hardheaded?”

Did you hear someone say it to someone in your presence? Was it said to you? Did you say it to someone?

Why was it said?

What was the intent of the question?

Was it said in anger? Was it said to criticize, or shame, or embarrass or hurt? Or might it have been descriptive and the intent been to correct or instruct or in some manner to “help”?

Hold those questions as you read this passage and see if you can grasp something of the prophet’s intent?

VIII.
Isaiah 48:3–8a, 17 (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition)

The former things I declared long ago;
       they went out from my mouth, and I made them known;
       then suddenly I did them, and they came to pass.
Because I know that you are obstinate,
       and your neck is an iron sinew
       and your forehead brass,
I declared them to you from long ago,
       before they came to pass I announced them to you,
so that you would not say, “My idol did them;
       my carved image and my cast image commanded them.”

You have heard; now see all this;
       and will you not declare it?
From this time forward I tell you new things,
       hidden things that you have not known.
They are created now, not long ago;
       before today you have never heard of them,
       so that you could not say, “I already knew them.”
You have never heard; you have never known;
       from of old your ear has not been opened.
For I knew that you would act very treacherously
       and that from birth you were called a rebel.

Thus says the Lord,
       your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:
I am the Lord your God,
       who teaches you how to succeed,
       who leads you in the way you should go.

IX.
If you take notice of a few words of Jesus recorded in Matthew 5:22 we hear him telling the crowd to be very careful about being angry with another or insulting another or calling another a “fool”.

Do you find these words from Isaiah are spoken to show how the Redeemer might teach and lead or are they close to calling another a “fool”?

Maybe there are times some of our foolishness should be called out?

If so, how do we discern when to be so confrontational?

charles
{ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est}


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