2023_10_16 Insight Post- Kim Feld

  -   October 16, 2023

This week’s reading-  Ezra 1-6, John  4

I’ve been thinking a lot about perspective lately. I’m fascinated by the fact that two people can see the same situation in vastly different ways. There are often cultural and sociological factors at play for sure.

In 2007, Mark Allan Powell wrote a book entitled What Do They Hear? Bridging the Gap Between Pulpit and Pew, examining the differences social factors make when reading the Bible. In the book, he tells of an experiment that he did beginning with American seminary students using the story of the Prodigal Son. He was so fascinated with the results that he expanded the study to include participants from Russia and Tanzania. In answering why the son ended up in the pigpen, most participating Americans felt it was because he squandered his money. At the same time, those from Russia said it was because of the famine (Luke 15 tells us that there was a famine in the land), and those from Tanzania said it was because no one helped him. The complete information from the study is fascinating, and I encourage you to look it up if you are interested, but the point is perspective matters.

In our reading of Ezra this week, we read these verses at the end of Chapter 3:

¹² But many of the older priests, Levites, and other leaders who had seen the first Temple wept aloud when they saw the new Temple’s foundation. The others, however, were shouting for joy. ¹³ The joyful shouting and weeping mingled together in a loud noise that could be heard far in the distance.

These verses scream the power of perspective to me. Those who were older and had seen the original Temple wept over the new one. Younger people shouted for joy over the new foundation, not fully realizing the grandeur and beauty of what had been lost. Fast forward to Ezra 6 when the Temple is completed; the ceremony pales compared to the celebration of the Temple’s completion in Solomon’s day (See 1 Kings 6-8). One striking difference is the absence of God’s presence filling the new Temple as He had in the original.

Let’s take the idea of perspective a little further to the difference between our perspective and God’s. I have a very limited view of everything that comes my way, but God can see it all from His perspective. Our God is always aware, always present, and always at work. I am trying to put less stock in my perspective and more on His. Obviously, I can’t know the entire plan, but God has given me what He desires of me: to trust and have faith that He is at work and knows what’s best.

Our Bible reading plan this year has helped us connect the dots between the Old and New Testaments, but it also demonstrates that God will not be deterred from His plan. It may make zero sense to us at the moment, but He is at work both in and around us if we allow Him to be. Perspective matters.